On this Valentine’s Day, join Renata Azevedo Moreira, Assistant Curator, Canadian Art, as she unveils the pictorial experience of the oil on linen Torn Heart, by Canadian artist Natalka Husar. This fascinating work from 1994 is a part of Husar’s Black Sea Blue series and was acquired last year, being now on view at the JS McLean Centre for Indigenous & Canadian Art. Painting personal narratives of collective significance, Husar uses kitsch aesthetic elements to illustrate fragmented tales around cultural differences and her Ukrainian heritage, tracing parallels between stereotypical visions of Western and Eastern lives and habits. Husar’s paintings are a compelling mix of joy, guilt, mystery, and seduction, and Torn Heart vividly expresses the complexities and paradoxes of love stories we have all lived.