We're so glad to see you here!
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In the individual artist's introductory section, you can click “Visit Artist’s Gallery” for a deep dive into their art and to access their contact info.
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Artists are funny creatures. We get inspiration from so many places… people… thoughts… feelings… and then we sit with them and they percolate. It could be a long time before we do anything with the idea until, BAM! we have it fully formed and we have to paint it, NOW!
It was so with the I CARRY series. The first one in my Gallery, I CARRY MY DAD, is a story somewhere from someone that was picked out of this vast universe. I could see the mountains, the hardship of the climb and the cold, and the ethnicity of the dad. I loved the words “I carry” as it’s you, it’s me, and there is this feeling of holding something precious. And we all have a dad, who in our hearts, we carry. |
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At the heart of my work is an empathy and gratitude for the simple beauty of the earth and nature. My paintings, wooden ships and mobiles are inspired by an enduring love for the spirit and wisdom of this planet.
There are certain special moments, a slant of light, a splash of colour, a fleeting reflection, the feel of the wind or mist; moments often brief and magical that breathe meaning into our lives. This is what inspires me to paint, to create, to build things and share the experience. |
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After a long career in the corporate world, I gave in to my passion to paint, working mainly in acrylic for the richness of its colours. The unique beauty of flowers stirs my emotions and inspires my artwork, stemming from growing up in Jamaica where I was surrounded by an abundance of exotic plants and flowers always in bloom. Blossoms fade far too quickly so I enjoy using my art to preserve them at their peak, keeping them alive by painting them close up and in a realistic style.
I am happiest when out in nature and among flowers. Living in Toronto, this is not possible year round except, of course, in my studio where I am surrounded by my paintings. I hope my art brings pleasure to the viewer, conveying the beauty and power of the flowers that captivate me. |
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It would seem that I have been a “creator” forever. Painting, stencilling, alcohol ink, and collage are all part of my mixed media art. I have been teaching these various forms of art for many years with success and a generous amount of enjoyment.
Basically, my art comes from whatever I love and am interested in at the moment, that is what my art will become. |
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The joy of line has always been part of my expression. Those intricate shapes and lines have always grabbed my attention and imagination when I am sketching or painting from nature.
I am delving more and more into the connectedness of the real and the abstract, therein finding more creative freedom. I am inspired by nature. In 2020, I was even more inspired: as we soldiered through lockdown, I craved space, trees, and a big sky. Painting was my outlet and my survival. The newest painting, "Moss Maidens", was influenced by the dedication of nurses during the height of the pandemic. Then I learned about "nurse logs", fallen trees that miraculously nurture younger trees and plants in a forest for up to 500 years. Mother Nature was whispering to me. I hope you enjoy looking at my newer work. I have added a few older pieces just for fun. |
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These 2x3 canvas hangings are created without a paintbrush. They are of the moment, one of a kind creations. They are about creating in the now and exploring my thoughts on heaven. These are my three aspirations:
to have the intensity of the language of Riopelle and Jackson Pollock to have the original mark making of Jean Michel Basquiat to have the ethereal sweeps of Helen Frankenthaler |
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Using an acrylic palette, I paint high-colour canvases of stylized landscapes, scenes and themes. The effect is somewhat surreal; both representational and detailed in many ways, yet the perspective is quirky with lots of movement emphasized by vibrant hues and pureness of pigment. My style has been described as naïve, illustrative, outsider, cartoonish and “funky”. But I like to describe it as a whimsical, visual medley of the many artistic styles that have influenced me since childhood. Though I like to experiment with line and colour and dabble in different styles and approaches, I never deviate from my palette of highly-saturated hues. I strongly believe in the therapeutic value of creativity and have worked with elementary school children and young people with special needs I am currently studying to become an art therapist and hope to eventually be able to help people find expression and catharsis through art. Most recently, I have enjoyed incorporating single-use plastics and other end-of-life objects into my art to reduce my personal environmental footprint and promote a culture of conservation in viewers. I hope that my love of colour, line and shape reflects in my work and that viewers feel the joy of life and humour it is meant to convey.
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I am interested in exploring the concept of "Beauty" in all of its forms:
the Beauty and energy in a smile or in a pair of Flip Flops. It's there if you look. I am also inspired by the bold colours of the Caribbean, the raw honesty of graffiti art and the passion of Pop Culture figures in movies, music, fashion and sports. Beauty is all around us in this incredible world God created,: I want to celebrate it on canvas. |
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After teaching secondary school art for many years, Bernadette is now enjoying having the time and opportunity in retirement, to develop her own art and to pursue her other creative interests in the theatre. She has worked as a set designer and painter and costume designer with the Toronto Irish Players, a community theatre organization, and has been acknowledged for her work with awards from the Association of Community Theatre of Central Ontario or ACT-CO.
She has been a member of the Art Tour Collective for many years and has participated in four art tours in the spring as well as being part of collective Art Tour group shows at Neilson Park Creative Centre, the Art Square Gallery and the Etobicoke Civic Centre. She has also shown her work at Quest Gallery in Midland. Bernadette works mainly in acrylics and watercolours but has recently discovered pastels and loves them for their immediacy and vibrancy. Painting “en plein air” has enabled her to enjoy the lovely countryside views of Ontario, and the East Coast of Canada. |
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My desire is to bring colour into your home and joy into your life.
I am inspired by the beauty and resilience of the natural world and I am passionate about expressing the miracle of nature through my paintings. I am a self-taught collage and mixed media artist. I have lived and worked in Dublin, Paris and New York and now call Toronto my home. I have taken courses at the Belfast College of Art, Parsons School of Design and the Ontario College of Art, and have participated in a number of exhibitions. I love the freedom that mixed media brings and the opportunity it provides to incorporate my love of drawing and painting, working with paper, acrylics, inks, and other water soluble media. I have developed a particular expertise in hand-painted paper collage and I also enjoy creating expressive floral and other paintings in acrylic and mixed media. I also design greeting cards, facemasks, clothing and accessories from my original art. |
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Cracked Fuse Art Glass
expressions of colour and all things cracked Playing with glass fusing? What could be better! Immersed in colour and endless possibilities for manipulating its flow and movement in a kiln. Taking a perfectly clear sheet of glass and, adding coloured powders and glass bits of all shapes and sizes, watching it transform into a one-of-a-kind piece to be shaped and molded. Pouring your vision into untold hours of work, then trusting the kiln gods not to shatter your masterpiece-in-the-making. All leading up to that moment when you lift the lid many hours later, holding your breath, to brave a look inside… It’s what I choose to do when I can make the time and I love it. |
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Ileen Kohn is an artist and a teacher at the high school level in Toronto.
Working in oil on canvas, her subject matter ranges from landscapes to portraits to still life. She also produces watercolour sketches which she transfers to greeting cards which sell at Bookcity in Toronto. She has been showing in local art fairs including The Art Tour Collective, the Rosedale Art Fair and Schomberg Street Gallery. |
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How can I portray the awe of nature in a painting? When I came to Canada 20 years ago, I used to love painting in High Park just like. Nature was experienced with all my five senses: The sound of the wind, the smell of the rain or petals falling on my face, etc. For a while, I focused on light and colours. Then I wanted to paint bigger so that the viewers can walk into the paintings. I never see my paintings as my self-portraits like Van Gogh. The form that builds on canvas is simply an outer shell to what lives inside - the energy, or perhaps gods and spirits - that give life to a space.
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Since childhood, I have felt a deep love for the natural environment. I grew up in a city, but with magnificent parks barely a stone's throw away.
I have always felt the need to express the beauty around me through drawing and painting. In my landscape work I seek to transport the viewer to another place and time. To excite the imagination; to evoke memories and associations, and a love of fantasy and beauty. |
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Growing up in and on the ocean connected me to the rhythm of tides, the seasonal cycles, the constantly moving and powerful wind, meditative mists and glowing, reflective atmospheres. The natural world speaks to us of things that are far greater than we realize. The ocean puts life into perspective…we are tiny and impermanent on our little planet. And we are under siege. My paintings are meditative, even prayerful, pointing to the mystery and beauty within the storms, to extraordinary light and uplifting possibilities.
Raku is an ancient and exciting firing process that requires the potter to abandon the pot to extremes of flame, steam and fire with little control of the outcome. It is dramatic, imprecise and unpredictable. |
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In grade 8 I had an art teacher who showed us a picture of Van Gogh’s “The Potato Eaters” and I could not explain what I was feeling when I first saw it. It reached me at my core—the emotion, strain, hopelessness, hunger in those faces! Now through my art I want to speak to people with that much intensity whether it be joyfulness or struggle.
I was born in Oneida, New York, moving to Canada in 1993 when I married Mike Glicksohn, who encouraged me to pursue a lifelong desire—painting. I took my first art class in 1994 and have continued to paint most everyday in between marking essays. Now I have retired from teaching English after 30 years and can paint full time. What heaven! My greatest influences in my art have been: Salvador Dali, Thomas Cole, Maxfield Parrish, William Blake. It is my hope that my art will speak in a unique way to those who listen! |
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To me watercolour is all about painting the light. The pleasure is when it works and the agony is when it doesn't. I work to find a balance between abstraction and a recognizable image, which is an urge to express how I see what's in front of me, and I love that it comes directly from me and my brain, down through my fingers, out through the brush. Watercolour painting is a ridiculously unforgiving medium, but some days we get along wonderfully.
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For now, the door has closed on many art events; we look for new pathways.
All over the map in various worlds. I have been calling myself an acrylics painter, but for many years I was a watercolourist. This time of withdrawal has brought that past world into the present: now I move between watercolours and acrylics, and even water-mixable oil paint. Many of the current watercolours have been painted on Japanese paper, which is not always predictable. It must have its own voice in the composition, which means understanding where not to paint. How appropriate, in this time, to be working between what can and what cannot be controlled. How appropriate to be learning (once again) the power of empty space. |
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Sixty thousand years ago, a nomad found a piece of torso shaped rock and helped shape a headless primitive sculpture. Art is science by other means; the proliferation of styles and experiments creates not only art but reveals what various societies thought and felt about to themselves and the world.
My painting is a visual biography of places I have visited and liked which got my attention because of a certain drama, beauty or memory. I have lived in three different countries and been influenced by the various lived experience in each. |
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I love the excitement of a blank canvas, which to me signifies the beginning of a new journey. My first brush stroke is the first step in what is often uncharted territory. I let my feelings guide my brushstrokes and each and every step on the journey. My paintings, range from telling you a story, to letting you find your own story. I love textures and bold colours and the freedom to experiment, and even break a few rules.
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My love and fascination with the Canadian landscape stem from being raised on the rocky shores of the Ottawa River. My awe of the beauty that one can find throughout nature continues to this day.
As a child, I was always drawing or colouring. I began as a self-taught artist then moved to Toronto in the late 60’s. Much later, I followed my dream of attending and graduating from the Ontario College of Art and Design. While at OCAD, I studied in Florence, Italy fall semester 1999 where I was very fortunate to receive instructions from the world’s leading authority on Rembrandt’s techniques, Mister Richard Serrin. As an artist, I enjoy experimenting with texture, values and different colour combinations within my paintings. My favourite season still remains the Canadian Fall. Mon besoin profond pour la création artistique et mon appréciation des paysages canadiens ont débutés dès mon enfance et me motivent à toujours vouloir aller plus loin dans mes projets au cours de ma vie. Mon style personnel a évolué au cours des années et il combine l’impressionnalisme, le pointillisme, les arts graphiques et la fantaisie. Mes expériences récentes avec les textures épaisses à la peinture à l’huile et appliquées fraîches sur fraîches avec un jet de pinceau court et en diagonale me permettent de créer un relief qui se rapproche de la sculpture et c’est ce que je recherchais dans mes créations artistiques. Mon art se dirige là où le vent l’emmène. |
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It was a natural step from 30 years of written communications to visual storytelling with my camera. I’m an opportunistic photographer; my compositions are usually the result of serendipity. I seek out little mysteries in the mundane, and watch for stories in urban and ancient landscapes. I keep my eyes and mind open for an alignment of things that convey their story to me. In an increasingly noisy universe, I want my photography to create a quiet corner of silence. With COVID-19 restricting my travel ability, I have turned my lens toward Canada. So far, I've been spending my time working around my home province, Ontario; sometimes it can be just at the end of my driveway, sometimes a little further afield, usually in places where there are few humans. Finding new ways to present familiar landscapes has forced me to be more creative. I've been spending a lot more time this year creating abstract images based on nature.
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Steaped Slow Ceramics are a unique art form in that they bring beauty to objects which can be used everyday. Incorporating handmade pottery into your life can add more mindfulness and joy to the daily rituals they are used for. They invite you to slow down and appreciate the little gifts of life, whether that’s to enjoy your morning coffee in a mug crafted to feel good in your hands or gathering with friends to share a homemade meal in handmade goods.
Sara Scheuermann is hands, heart and soul behind the wheel at Steaped Slow Ceramics. Each piece is intentionally crafted by her hands, steeped and infused with that good handmade energy. She creates out of Toronto and Prince Edward County. |
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The Environment, with its constantly changing nature and unending sense of contradiction, has always intrigued me: beauty in the seemingly ugly, power in the fallen. My first recent exploration in visual art was a fascination with trees, with finding colour in nature when it was barely apparent, the grey of winter. On canvas these became purple, pink, lime green. Recent works are still focused on trees, their shapes mainly: strong and knotted limbs, decaying stumps, waving branches from a slight trunk; some, as in “Lady Tree”, representing a merging with ourselves. In “Fallen Majesty”, a tree has fallen across Grenadier Pond. No longer upright, it reminds us of the power that was and that we are to care for these keepers of the earth.
Other subjects include one of a series of antique boats, a union of earth, water, wood and steel; both bright and lonely outdoor scenes from Thailand; images of magnified, unglorified weed flowers, the thistle, common cacti and strawberries, one of a series of fruit paintings, Nature at her most luscious. |
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Originally from Toronto and living in the beautiful Georgian Bay Area has given me the opportunity to view and enjoy city and country at its best. I love taking photos of the spectacular gardens on my frequent visits to Toronto and many walks in the quieter area where I now reside. I strive to bring the photos back to life with the use of soft body and fluid acrylic so I can share the wonder of nature I see at every turn.
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I began my pottery carrier in 1985 as a second-generation potter. In that time I have produced close to 250,000 pots. I have also had the good fortune to have been an arts educator for twenty years. In that time I have delivered hundreds of workshops in dozens of schools, community centres, health centres, libraries and my own studio. I have worked with a variety of groups in different contexts; children, youth, people marginalized or at risk, seniors. In the past 7 years, I have become active in facilitating community arts projects with a number of groups, primarily in community health care centres and libraries.
Great pottery doesn't attempt to mimic nature or to fly in the face of it. I believe that timeless pottery celebrates our natural world by best utilizing the simple gifts from the ground. The challenge of functional pottery is to turn the mundane into the magical. Truly great functional pottery is a fine balance between utility and beauty where neither is compromised. The quest for this perfect balance using thrown porcelain continues to inspire me. |
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Les Tait has been painting for over 50 years. His early paintings were primarily in water colour and centred on urban themes. He later went on to paint a number of professional baseball and hockey “greats.” These images were released in collectible limited editions. More recently he has moved to painting in oils. While his choice of image has broadened over the years and is sometimes less realistic, he still focuses on images that depict the beauty in everyday life. Some of Les’ iconic images of Toronto have been replicated in a variety of publications. He has also illustrated 2 well known children’s books focusing on important historical figures and places in Toronto ( White Stone in the Castle Wall, Clay Ladies) Les has work in some major private and public art collections including: Concordia University, Confederation Public Art Gallery, City of Toronto Archives Collection, Casa Loma, Toronto Metropolitan Library and The Baseball Hall of Fame.
In commenting on his work Les says: “There is a joy to be found in painting that is like nothing else. I never say I am an artist, that is for someone else to determine. What I do is paint pictures.” Some of Les’ work is always on display at Bread and Roses, a popular café in Bloor West Village. |
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My art is driven by a blend of fixation and inspiration.
My fixation is derived from the elements of nature contending with landscapes made over by mankind. The struggles of wildlife against buildings, pollutants and pavement shape my images. My inspiration comes from the changes and adaptation of nature to this altered landscape. |
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I came to photography by chance many years ago; and then it took over and became a major part of my identity. I am self-taught, and I often fumble to find my way; the days I think I found it are truly exciting. I always endeavour to capture emotion in my images, from the exhilaration of fast movement to longing for the imagined peacefulness of times past in my still life; some images are humorous, and some are just about enchantment and beauty. And now, abstract floral photography, and flamingos… I am excited to find out what’s next. My photographs wish they were paintings. Some day they might become that. I hope to share my delight in beauty with you.
In this exhibit I am presenting a short selection of floral photography and of my ‘enchanted flamingo’ series. |
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As a Canadian fine artist, I am passionate about painting a unique, contemporary expression of the interplay of light, colour, shape and texture. I am inspired by the sense of balance and design I discover in creation and am intrigued by the seemingly infinite variety of lines, spaces, textures, shapes and vibrant colours I find there.
I take several photographs of a subject and return to my studio to transform the scene into an abstracted and transfigured composition. I want the viewer to be excited by the textures, colours and shapes in my paintings. To create varied painting surfaces, I often use a mix of natural and created materials, including modelling paste, gels, silica sand, photo and stencil inserts in conjunction with acrylic or oil paint. Together with a love of colour and a passion for design, my paintings evoke a sense of contemplative spirituality. The concept of ‘flourishing’ and what it means to thrive in life is a prominent theme in my artwork as I seek to create ‘contemporary paintings for a transfigured state of being.’ |
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I am inspired to create when observing the colours, shapes and textures of the natural world.
While I admire more abstract works, I have never been drawn to create them and have instead created from the world I see around me. Canada’s spectacular scenery has captivated me and I have focused my art on the trees, rocks, and lakes as well as the mountain vistas of our country. While I am naturally drawn to more sombre colours in my art, sometimes the sheer joy of loud and bright visions entrances me. Oil paint lets me work in a contemplative manner because of its ability to be manipulated and its long drying time but acrylic focuses me with its need for immediacy and so I use both mediums in my art. |
