Emilija Pasagic is a native of Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia. Formally educated in landscape architecture, she worked in Europe for several years. She arrived in Canada in 1993, where she and her family continue to live.

Emilija was inspired to become an artist at an early age, always painting and drawing. her settlement in Canada sparked an artistic rejuvenation. Early works include painting on silk and an intense series of abstract fruits and figures. She became involved in the vibrant Toronto art scene, joining "The Scollard Street Artistic Cooperative" and VAO (Visual Arts Ontario). Her present artistic focus is the painting of still life, particularly fruit and flowers executed in a richly textured encaustic medium.

The intensity and drama of relationships between people and emotions inspire Emilija. Her paintings are an outlet, a way of showing pain and love in a medium that doesn't invoke either. Sharing with the viewer her memories. When asked how she chooses her subjects, Emilija replied, "My tulips and dancing fruit (my people) choose me, either they want to be painted or they don't."

Emilija likens her work to that of a composer, translating her visions on to the canvas as sort of a symphony for the soul. In her mind, painting can be based on a single brush stroke as long as that stroke contains emotion. She shares the beauty and passion that she sees in the world around her, through the interaction of her tulips and the melodic infusion of her colours.

Emilija's technique involves a unique blending of bee's wax and oil paint applied to paper, board or canvas. In this contemporary reference to the ancient technique of encaustic, the paint is sometimes blended into the hot wax, burnt into it, or simply painted upon. Careful layering and scratching is used to accent the textures. The resulting tones are the yellows and oranges of Spain and Morocco and the olives and crimsons of the Mediterranean. The happy placement of flowers and fruits seemingly narrate life's journeys. They tell stories of being together or apart and of creating identity.