Allan Harding MacKay has had a long and multifaceted career in the visual arts as a gallery director/curator, arts administrator and professional artist. Allan has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally and public collections, corporations and private collectors in Canada and Switzerland have acquired his works. He has served as a visiting artist and resident artist at several Canadian universities, art colleges and public galleries and has been awarded artist grants by the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and Alberta Foundation of the Arts.
More recently he has taken on public art commissions for the Veterans Memorial Legislature Grounds Ontario, the Pape Subway Modernization, Toronto; and the Hanson Avenue Athletic Complex, Kitchener.
Since 1993, Allan ’s Somalia war artist experience has featured prominently in his art practice and in July 2002, the artist participated in a pilot project of the Canadian Forces Artist Program as a war artist with Operation Apollo in Afghanistan. Art work from these experiences have produced award winning videos, drawings, paintings, collages and prints that were featured in exhibitions and collected by museums such as the Canadian War Museum, the National Gallery of Canada, the Glenbow Museum, Confederation Centre Art Gallery and the University of Lethbridge.
Allan is currently a curatorial consultant at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery and lives in Kitchener, Ontario Canada.
Brian Smith graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, Canada in 1969. For over 35 years he has been both a professional, award-winning graphic designer and a practicing fine artist focusing on classical drawing and painting from the figure. His works are in collections across North America and he has exhibited in numerous juried and invitational shows.
Brian was awarded the title of "Honourary Drawing Master" by the Drawing Society of Canada. Brian was also named "Artist of the Month" by American Artist magazine.
Brian has taught classes and workshops on life drawing and portraiture for over 20 years and has been on the faculty of the Ontario College of Art and Design, The Koffler Centre for the Arts, Haliburton School of The Arts, Curry's Art School, Visual Arts Mississauga and Neilson Park Creative Centre as well as conducting Master Classes in his own studio. Brian is currently accepting portrait commissions and gallery inquiries as well as workshop engagements.
Born in the small Ontario town of Arnprior, Carrie Colton studied design at St-Lawrence College in Kingston before beginning her design career in Toronto and Montreal, working in several art departments, including Hallmark and the Montreal Gazette. After moving to Ottawa in 1992, she partnered in two award-winning Ottawa graphic design firms, later successfully founding her own company, C-design.
In 1999, Carrie began pursuing her passion for contemporary portrait art. During this time she studied privately with an acclaimed Canadian artist, Eliza Griffiths, and in 2002 completed painting studies at the Ottawa School of Art. Since trading in her mouse for a paintbrush, she has shown her work at the leading contemporary galleries in Ottawa, participating in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Carrie is currently represented by the Dale Smith Gallery and her paintings are found in many private and public art collections, including the City of Ottawa.
Along side her art practice, Carrie’s interest in interior design led her to establish Huego Art + Design in 2008. Just as her passion for design has always informed her painting aesthetic, her design and art consultation work, interacting with other artists, designers and clients, combined with the solo activity of painting, provides Colton with the perfect balance.
Painting website:
www.carriecolton.ca
Design company website:
www.huego.ca
Catto Vanessa Houghton graduated from Concordia University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drawing and painting in 2003, and has since been living and working in Toronto. While living in Montreal she was involved in many curatorial projects and group exhibitions, as well as working on independent projects and solo shows. She was one of the primary founders of Profuzion Collective, a multi-disciplinary arts collective that organized two large-scale one-night events, that brought together over 150 local artists and performers.
Catto has participated in several group exhibitions and projects including live-collaborative painting with local graffiti and mixed media artists and illustrators at venues such as Omy Gallery, The Spoke Club, and the Whipper Snapper Gallery. She has worked at several Toronto galleries including Luft Gallery, The Art Gallery of Ontario, The Gibsone Jessop Gallery, Artcore, and currently Median Contemporary, a space showcasing new-media art works. She has been a two-time finalist and honorable mention at the Kingston prize for Contemporary Canadian Portraiture and has participated in a juried group show at the New Jersey Center for Visual Arts. Her illustrations have appeared in magazines such as EnRoute, the Montreal Gazette and Shameless. She is a member of the Portrait Society of Canada and one of the founders of Walnut Studios, a working studio and presentation space for emerging and established local artists. Her favourite things besides contemporary art include sharks, cycling, house music, architecture and new fiction.
Christina has been painting and working with sound for over a decade. She studied art at McMaster University and the Dundas Valley School of Art and holds an MFA from the School of Drawing and Painting, Edinburgh College of Art. She has exhibited throughout the UK and across Canada, and has won numerous awards for her painting, including a grant for painting from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York and three from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, Montreal. Her work is in the collection of the Fredrick Horseman Varley Gallery, Toronto, Ontario and Standard Life, Edinburgh UK and also within private collections in Canada, the UK and USA. She is represented by the Bau-Xi Gallery in Toronto and Vancouver and presently lives and works in Hamilton, Ontario. Christina also creates electronic music and has performed throughout Europe, North America, and the UK, often working in collaboration with Richard Oddie.
Through figure studies, portraiture and landscapes, Daniel examines relationships of the psychological and physical which are captured through his painting techniques.
Since graduating from the New York academy of art M.F.A program in 1995 Daniel has been featured in numerous shows across Canada, as well as shows in London, England, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Daniel has also exhibited at numerous art fairs including London, Chicago, San Francisco and Toronto.
Some of his portrait work includes people such as Gordon Downie of the Tragically Hip, writer Charlotte Gray, the acting principle of the Royal Military College and numerous private commissions in Canada and Europe.
Daniel currently lives and works in Newfoundland, Canada.
Daniel Ross grew up in Ottawa, Ontario and from an early age had a strong affliction with art. After completing two years at Carlton University he decided to change his career focus, applying and being accepted at the Ontario College of Art (OCA). In his third year at OCA Daniel was accepted to study abroad in Florence, Italy, the experience was unforgettable. In 1993 Daniel graduated from the drawing and painting department with an honourable mention and established a studio in his Toronto home.
In the years after graduating from school Daniel began to receive recognition for his artwork, in 1997 he was the recipient of an Ontario Arts Council grant. In the following years he was awarded 1st place and Juror Choice awards from the Etobicoke Juried Art Exhibition, along with honourable mention from the Mississauga Art Gallery. In 2007 he was awarded best in show from ArtWorks, Oakville.
In 1999, Daniel moved with his wife to Burlington, Ontario establishing another in-home studio. In 2004 their daughter Lola was born. In addition to Daniel’s full-time dedication to painting he has been the primary caregiver to his daughter. In the past ten years he has had five solo exhibitions and participated in twenty-two group and juried exhibitions. His work can be seen at Wallack Galleries, Ottawa, Ontario and Abbozzo Gallery, Oakville, Ontario.
Daniel’s work has a very personal vision, dealing heavily with different emotions and their reactions with certain states of mind. He first began exploring these emotions through abstract paintings, but was more and more drawn to the use of the figure and landscape. Through the displacement of figure and landscape, or object and landscape he tries to communicate individual inner thoughts.
When Erik draws a fine line, he makes it look easy. His ability to capture a likeness in the first few seconds of drawing is where the composition takes shape; and from there, the sky’s the limit. His artistic discipline is the human form – in any setting. He is a master artist in various mediums and is well known for his classic oil portraits.
Born in Latvia in 1925, Erik began drawing when he was a child. He joined the Acedemy of Arts in Riga, where his artistic vision developed. During WW2 as part of the resitance, his talents helped him get through tough times and close calls. He met his wife-to-be Aija in Donauworth, Germany and they immigrated as political refugees to Canada, where Erik has since earned a successful living with his talents.
In 1950, he was hired by TDF Artists Ltd and over the next 27 years Erik’s commercial illustrations appeared in many nationwide ad campaigns. Recognition of his artwork opened doors and by the 60s Erik was drawing and painting the dancers of major ballet companies. The art of dance became his study for the next 30 years.
Mr Dzenis resides in Thornhill, Ontario, where he is still busy at work in his studio.
Elaine is a Canadian artist who specializes in portraiture. She graduated from the University of Western Ontario in 1978 and exhibited her works in both Toronto and Ottawa galleries for several years.
In 1999 her series of seventy-five “Portraits of Canadian Achievement” was unveiled at the New Brunswick Museum. Several of these paintings, drawings and photographs have been acquired by the NB Museum, the National Archives of Canada, the City of Ottawa, and private collectors.
At the opening of the new Canadian War Museum, fourteen large drawings were acquired for their permanent Beaverbrook collection and were displayed in a solo exhibition that lasted two years. These portraits of war veterans, Holocaust survivors and peacekeepers were the inspiration for Elaine’s design of a coin for the Royal Canadian Mint commemorating the Year of the Veteran.
She continues to expand her series on War Art and resides in Ottawa with her husband and two daughters.
Gabor Paul Mezei was born in Budapest, Hungary. Following the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, he escaped to Austria and then moved to England, where he lived until immigrating to Canada in 1965.
A few years after his arrival in Toronto, he established Gallery Gabor in Toronto's celebrated Mirvish Village, where it remains to this day. Over the years, his gallery has featured many well known Canadian and international artists, and hosted an annual show of Gabor's own works.
While he considers his artistic approach to be experimental, and sees the production of a painting as a process of searching. Gabor is versatile in many media, including oil, acrylic, watercolour and pastel, collage and assemblage. He has taught at the Koffler Gallery, the Sesquicentennial Gallery, the Southampton Art School, and the Schneider School of Art, among others, and has won several awards in group exhibitions. His work can be found in many private, corporate, and public collections around the world. A past member of the OSA and SCA and a supporting member of the CSPWC and ASPWC, Gabor continues to be fully active as a creative artist.
Toronto artist Gertrude Kearns’s interest in Canadian defense resulted in a Department of National Defense contract as official war artist in Afghanistan in 2006. Recent are 1812 era portrait commissions of Tecumseh and General Brock for the Royal Canadian Military Institute in 2007-8.
UNdone:Dallaire/Rwanda, 2002, bridging the conceptual with traditional portraiture, showed in Toronto at Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts, a board member 2000-2002. Representation by Lehmann Leskiw, Toronto 2004-6 realized United States of Being: the John Bentley Mays Portraits, 2005 extending the subject of intellect and depression.
Abstract paintings (1992,1995) in Sotheby’s with Ritchies 2007 and 2008 Important Canadian Art; a 2007 retrospective and publication at Headbones Gallery, Toronto Abstract Works 1989-1992; a decade’s cross section of her works are in The Canadian War Museum’s 2009-12 national touring exhibition A Brush with War: Military Art from Korea to Afghanistan.
She was the recipient of the Anthony Miles Award for most outstanding work in 1992 from the Ontario Society of Artists. Her works are in private, public and corporate Canadian collections including the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and the War Art Collection, Ottawa. Kearns is included with two portraits in Carte Blanche v.2 painting, The Magenta Foundation, 2008.
For the last two decades, Greg Damery has produced a body of significant work characterized by a most intense engagement with the waterfalls, trees, shrubs, clouds, roads of Muskoka. He also works from life models producing nudes of highly realized form, dramatically lit.
Greg is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art (OCA), standing first in Fine Art at OCA, awarded the OCA Medal and the Sir Edmund Walker Graduate Scholarship for three consecutive awards years. Greg is a graduate of Guelph University Specialized BA (hons) with distinction, in Fine Art and Sheridan College. He specialized in studies of British landscape painting as a post graduate scholar at Oxford University, as a Recognized Student at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. He has been the recipient of many other awards and scholarships. Greg is a full-time faculty member of OCAD in the drawing and painting program and a part-time faculty member at Nipissing University.
Greg toured the Scottish Highlands in the spring of 2008, painting landscape. He is currently working with a Senior Research Fellow at the Tate, to confirm the particular geographical location of a work by Turner, of a previously unknown location, from his drawings of the 1801 Highland Tour.
The artist has exhibited in the U.K since 1982, with a one man at Le Mur Vivant Galleries. London, UK in 1997, where he continues to exhibit. He shows in Toronto at Kinsman Robinson Galleries.
Heather Cooper, a Canadian fine artist and graphic designer, has an illustrious and celebrated career that spans over three decades. She is perhaps best known for creating the original Roots “beaver” logo and the accompanying advertising campaign.
Over the years she as created intricate paintings that have been turned into promotional posters and prints for companies and organizations such as the Stratford Festival Theatre, the Canadian National Ballet, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Canadian Opera Company, the Houston Opera Company, the Baltimore Symphony, the Houston Zoo, Guelph University and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC garnering widespread recognition.
She has been commissioned to paint such celebrities as Pope John Paul II, Fay Dunaway, Moses Znaimer, Marilyn Lightstone, Sigfried & Roy, Bobby Orr, Darryl Sittler, Henri Richard and Kate Wheeler. Her paintings are in private collections through out North America.
Heather Cooper published a retrospective of her work titled Carnaval Perpetuel in 1988.
Heather is committed to the imaginative expression of ideas and has a passion for thing well done. Her paintings are lush and detailed, inspired by nature and the world around her.
Isabella is a painter, writer and multi-media artist based in Kitchener, Ontario.
Isabella began learning to paint in her native Romania at a school for gifted children. As a teenager she came to Canada and was awarded a Descartes scholarship at the University of Waterloo, where she studied mathematics, fine arts, and art history. Her studies were rounded off by two formative years spent drawing and painting in museums in London and Paris.
Isabella started exhibiting in 1992, in public and private galleries in Canada, France and the U.S.A. She works in a spacious studio that is part of Globe Studios, an artist run centre which she helped found, and where she has been running a life drawing group for several years. The practice of daily drawing informs all her work, and recently she became interested in the act of drawing as a form of performance.
Isabella was one of the founders of CAFKA – Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area. In 2007 she was awarded the Ontario Arts Council K.M.Hunter prize for interdisciplinary art.
During the past three years Jamie Bradbury’s body of work has explored two main themes; inherent issues surrounding contemporary notions of Masculinity and within this large topic, he has also explored Race. Jamie’s primary medium of choice during this exploration has been watercolour, gouache and ink.
Having graduated in 2006 from the Ontario College of Art and Design, and formally trained in oil painting, he approaches watercolour painting as an oil painter. His watercolours are large, aggressive and thickly applied, challenging previous notions of watercolour painting. His contemporary approach to watercolour painting has garnered him international attention from art critics.
Jamie has also been the recipient of various awards for his work, such as the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour, Julius Griffith Memorial Award, Jamop Emerging Artist Award, and the Duncan McPherson Award of Excellence. His work has also been featured in national and international publications and the focus of reviews in local newspapers. Recently Jamie partnered with Shiseido cosmetic company and was commissioned to paint 60 small paintings to aid in the launch of their new line. He was also recently commissioned to paint a portrait of Moses Znaimer for the launch of his new magazine Zoomermag.
Jamie will be returning to London, UK this coming September to complete is Master’s degree at the prestigious Central Saint Martin’s College. His work is featured in private collections throughout Canada and Europe.
Exploring the pervasive scope of “Blondeness” in contemporary culture, Jason Kronenwald’s Gum Blondes, portraits composed completely of chewed bubblegum, offer a cross section of popular blondes from Hillary Clinton to Lindsay Lohan. Employing unconventional materials, a team of chewers and a critical practice, Jason’s work positions itself directly within today’s celebrity obsessed mind-frame, blurring the lines of fine art and pop culture.
Jason graduated from Queen's University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1997 and is now based in Toronto where he produces his Gum Blondes. Each Gum Blonde is 100% chewed bubblegum on a plywood backing. No paint or dye is used - the colour is inherent to the gum.
The appeal of his portraits stretch across a wide audience, from some of Canada’s top collectors, including TD Waterhouse, to popular culture publications such as Ripley’s Believe it or Not.
Jason has received reviews in The Globe and Mail, the National Post, Elle Magazine, Spin Magazine, and the New York Times Style Magazine and his work has appeared on Breakfast Television, MuchMusic, Studio 2, Inside Edition and Good Morning America. He has had recent solo exhibitions in Toronto, and group shows in London, England and Hollywood, California.
Toronto-based portrait painter John Viljoen (born 1967 - Toronto) paints people clearly and simply, with beauty and strength, conveying the humanity inside the person through their outer body. He renders with the skills of past masters while still feeling fresh, capturing a portrait that is alive and full of intelligence and emotion. He is less concerned with recording social standing or rank, more concerned with intuiting the individual, idiosyncratic person before him. He prefers live sittings, but can work from photographic resources, if necessary.
John earned his BFA at the Parsons School of Design in NYC, then studied privately with Master artists Micheal Aviano (also in New York), then with Ted Seth Jacobs in France. His work hangs in many prominent collections throughout Canada and the US, including, but not limited to: The New York Genealogical and Biographical society, New York City, The Toronto Western Hospital, Upper Canada College, Toronto, and Ridley College, St Catharine's. He was a two-time finalist in The Artist's Magazine Annual Portrait Competition, and has been featured in both The Communication Arts Magazine and Applied Arts Magazine Illustration Annuals.
He is also an accomplished art teacher. He was the Head of Visual Arts at Royal St George's College for just over a decade and currently teaches portrait painting classes at The Avenue Road Arts School. He is the only individual instructor in Canada to be recognized for his teaching excellence by The Art Renewal Center by being included on their prestigious ARC Approved Ateliers list.
Juan Carlos Martínez is an award-winning artist living in Toronto, Canada, whose work has been featured in various publications and exhibitions around the world. He was trained in a classical atelier and works in what is now considered the classical realist tradition. Juan studied in Toronto, Canada, and Florence, Italy, under the tutelage of master painter, M. John Angel. Prior to that period he had been, among other things, a lawyer, but gave up that life to pursue his vocation as a professional classical painter. Today, in addition to maintaining an award-winning portfolio and working on portrait commissions, Juan is usually busy writing and teaching. He has acquired an international reputation both as an artist and art educator. His work hangs in private and institutional collections in Canada and the United States.
Juan is a chief instructor at Toronto’s Academy of Realist Art (ARA) and is the author of a popular 6-part instructional series in International Artist Magazine, entitled “The Academy Way”. He also teaches workshops throughout the year.
Judy originally trained as registered nurse and worked in nursing for many years. In her thirties, alongside her nursing career, she pursued her interest in art. She studied at the Toronto School of Art, Ontario College of Art, Academy of Realist Art and took numerous workshops with accomplished artists. Judy is a past Vice-President of the Ontario Society of Artists and juried and helped organize many exhibitions. Judy studied under and worked alongside many accomplished artists including Sybil Rampen, Renata Realini and Doris McCarthy.
From 1979 to 2008, Judy has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions in Ontario, many being with the OSA. Starting in 1990, Judy has had many solo exhibitions including 10 exhibitions in the Milton Studio Tour, 6 exhibitions in the Heliconian Hall, Yorkville, Toronto. Judy’s greatest delight was a solo exhibition in Toronto called ‘Over 80’ where she showed twenty-eight portraits all of dynamic people over the age of eighty.
In 2005 she was awarded second place by the Portrait Society of Canada and in 2007 given the Ontario Society of Artist’s President’s Award.
Judy is a part time teacher for the Portraiture with the Etobicoke Art Group, Neilson Park Creative Centre.
Katherine’s approach to art is traditional, with an emphasis on technique and fine craftsmanship. She has studied in many different environments over the years but is now pursuing a full-time career in art through portrait commissions and still life paintings.
In the past year Kate has received First Place and People's Choice Award from the Portrait Society of Canada; a Certificate of Excellence from the Portrait Society of America; as well as finalist and winning placements in various American art competitions, including the ARC International Salon. In 2010, one of her drawings will be seen in the book Strokes of Genius II.
Kate makes every effort to be involved in the art community around her and is affiliated with Adelaide Street Studio, an artist collective in Toronto; both the Portrait Society of Canada and the Portrait Society of America; and the Canadian Society of Classical Realism, a new society dedicated to furthering classical realism in Canada.
Kate was born in Maine in 1986 to Canadian parents and has dual citizenship. She sells artwork in both markets. Kate currently lives in Toronto with her husband and fellow artist, David Gluck.
Kim Van Stygeren Medland is a contemporary artist whose preferred subject is portraiture. Using uncommon intuition, Kim comprehends her subjects' psychology, creating portraits that are more complex and inviting than in traditional portraiture. Her fascination with her clients' lives results in each portrait directly reflecting the personality of the individual. And as no two people are alike, her art shows a remarkable diversity from piece to piece. She works in both oil on canvas and mixed media sculptures.
In the early 1980's Kim spent 3 years studying art in Paris, moving for the next few years to New York City, settling finally on a farm in Niagara, Ontario. Over the last two decades her list of famous and inspiring Canadian subjects has grown, from astronaut Roberta Bondar, to actors Mike Myers and Michael J. Fox, philanthropist Walter Carsen, dancer Veronica Tennent, as well as the late Canadian artist with great creative influence over Kim, Agnes Martin. The Museum of Television owns her audio/visual mixed media piece of Moses Znaimer and her work has been featured on various television stations including Bravo Arts Channel and Star!TV. Her artwork is in private and public collections around the world.
Kristy Gordon is an internationally exhibiting fine artist. Born in Nelson, British Columbia, Kristy has earned numerous prestigious awards, including two Awards of Excellence from the Federation of Canadian Artists; Best of Show in the National Art Premier, Elmhurst, Illinois; Juror’s Choice Award from the Orillia Museum of Art and History; and a Conference Scholarship from the Portrait Society of America. Kristy’s paintings hang in more than 400 collections worldwide, including the Government of Ontario Art Collection. She has been featured in a number of magazines and publications in Canada and the United States. Kristy Gordon is currently represented by Andreeva Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Laurie McGaw is well-known for her vibrant portraits of such outstanding Canadians as Oscar Peterson, Peter Gzowski , and Norman Jewison, as well as for her award-winning children’s books: Polar The Titanic Bear, nominated for a Governor General’s Award, which has sold over 680,000 copies in five languages. A New York Times review described Laurie’s portraits in the book African Princess as “stunning”; she was honoured for her work by the NAACP. Portraiture has been featured on four collectors’ coins that she has designed for the Royal Canadian Mint, including the 2007 Proof Silver Dollar and a $300 Gold Coin Series celebrating the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
A graduate of the Ontario College of Art & Design and a former instructor there, Laurie continues to teach: she conducts portrait painting workshops and master classes.
Laurie’s work has been featured in books, in magazines, and in private and corporate collections for over thirty years. People are drawn to her work because of her ability to reveal the sitter’s inner qualities with warmth and respect. “Laurie McGaw’s portraits have a lively attention to detail that definitively captures the fine nuances of her subject’s personality.”—Signe Ball, Publisher, In The Hills Magazine.
Manny, director and owner of one of Toronto’s foremost contemporary art galleries, has enjoyed marked success showcasing the next wave of exciting, young Canadian talent and propelling artists to heightened levels of recognition. His gallery’s openings, well known among the city’s fashionable set, draw leading figures from the fields of style, art, media, film, society and design.
Determining what’s hot before it’s pop and consistently identifying and fusing elements crucial to compelling artistic endeavors, Neubacher has become a respected voice in Canadian culture. To increase the focus on young Canadian art, design, fashion and architecture talent, Neubacher also devotes time and expertise to select creative projects.
In addition to being a host of over 100 segments of Toronto Living, he has produced and hosted the launches of numerous fashion projects including Viktor & Rolf Flower Bomb, Layer by Jennifer Dares, Allan Mikli eyewear, the redesign of ELLE Canada, Holt Renfrew, Pink Tartan and has been sponsored by HUGO by Hugo Boss as a man of style influence for over five years.
As an artist, Neubacher is driven to create innovative work in a variety of mediums, Neubacher uses and develops techniques that push the boundaries of his skill. He has worked extensively in a variety of methods from painting, printmaking and sculpture to photography and etching. The results are always original—striking in colour, texture, and relevance. With his affable manner, keen eye, inherent style and passionate support of the Canadian contemporary art scene, Neubacher has won the respect and admiration of leading journalists, prominent cultural figures and the city’s top influencers.
Maria was born and grew up in former Czechoslovakia in a family of artists. In 1968, Maria's family left for Austria and later immigrated to Canada. She now lives with her husband Ales Brezina in Toronto.
In addition to apprenticing with her parents Maria studied drawing, painting, sculpture and printmaking at University of British Columbia, the Vancouver School of Art, Montreal School of Art and Design, and the Art Students League of New York. Since 1978, the artist has exhibited extensively in Canada, U.S.A and internationally.
Maria has received several awards and her work is represented in private and public art collections in North America and Europe. Realist figurative representation with conceptual emphasis on the spiritual and Biblical has been the central theme of her work. Portraiture also holds a special focus with an impressive record of commissioned portraits. Among her subjects are many distinguished Canadians and Americans as well as a number of well known figures of the Czech and Slovak cultural scene.
Maria is an associate professor at the Ontario College of Art & Design in Toronto, and a member of several artists organizations and initiatives.
Marie Finkelstein is a Toronto painter who has exhibited extensively in both solo and group shows in Toronto and Ottawa, and as a 2005 finalist in the Kingston Portrait Prize Competition. She studied art in Montreal where she was born and raised, and at Boston University.
The principal focus of her work has always been the human face and figure, particularly the subject’s internal or psychological life. Marie has recently embarked on a new series of oil paintings, Peoplescapes: Social Interactions. These paintings broaden her study from the individual in isolation to an exploration of the fundamental human need to seek out the society of others. The new works depict people at leisure in the park, on the water and at the café - a modern allusion to the works of Renoir and Manet on the same theme. The viewer becomes a spectator, looking at people interacting and relating to one another in couples or groups, or individuals alone among the crowd, captured in a particular moment in space and time.
Marie is also a lawyer and published legal scholar, albeit now a full time painter. Marie’s legal experience naturally nourishes her understanding of her subjects. Law, after all, infuses all facets of human behavior. In her art, Marie seeks to understand and analyze better that behavior, and how it drives people to mingle and interact with others, even in this electronic age of internet and Facebook communication.
Mark graduated from the Ontario College of Art in 1985 having studied painting and sound sculpture.His introduction to glass came about when availing himself of the OCA hot glass studio to manufacture the first of what became an ongoing series of large experimental glass xylophones in which the organization of the playing surface determined the type of music that was generated.
Upon graduating, Mark became the in-house designer for a large traditional commercial stained glass company in Toronto. He has been self-employed as a visual artist working predominantly with glass since 1991. Since then, Mark has undertaken many large-scale architectural glass commissions and has generated a steady stream of studio artwork including: autonomous glassworks, paintings and mixed media sculpture. Mark has been exhibiting in group shows since the early 90s and in 2003 had his first one person show at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery. Mark maintains a large, fully equipped glass/art studio in Kingston, Ontario.
Mark occasionally subsidizes his artwork with the conservation and restoration of historic stained glass windows.
Natalie Majaba Waldburger received her B.A. specializing in Women’s Studies At Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. In 1996, she graduated with Honours from the Ontario College of Art and Design receiving the Drawing and Painting Department Medal, the highest award in her department. Natalie has taught at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in the Media Arts Department where she completed an MFA in 2004. Currently she is represented by Bau-Xi Gallery in Toronto and Vancouver and is a faculty member of the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto.
Natalie has been working in the medium of encaustic for 15 years. The large to mid-scale encaustic works are primarily figurative. The subject of identity and self-portraiture are tools used to develop a Canadian voice from the point of view of a second generation Swiss and Filipina immigrant. Since graduation Natalie has received provincial and federal grants for her artwork, which she has been exhibiting since 1994. Her paintings are represented in various public, private and corporate collections in Europe, North America, and Australia.
Natalie Waldburger's next exhibition will be at Bau-Xi Gallery Toronto, May 2009.
Natasha is a portrait artist, her story however, is not a typical one. Born with Cerebral Palsy her passion for music and the entertainment industry has enabled her to overcome many obstacles in life through her artwork. Each of the subjects within her artwork have inspired her by their own achievements.
Natasha has had the privilege of sketching some of the finest stars within the music and entertainment industry. Her artwork of Elvis Presley has had the honour of being officially licensed and recognized by Graceland (Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc.), making her Elvis Presley artwork officially sanctioned by Graceland. Her artwork of various Country stars is also regularly displayed within the Country Music Hall Of Fame in Nashville TN, of which she is also an honorary member. She has also created artwork for the Shania Twain Centre (in Canada) and was extremely honoured to cut the ribbon at the first official opening ceremonies. Her artwork of Country Music superstar Shania Twain was also included as part of Shania’s VH1 Documentary: “What It’s Like, The Return of Shania” where she also presented Shania with her portrait.
Since that time Natasha has gone on to do artwork for Blues Legend BB King, Alan Jackson, Kenny Chesney and Nascar racing Legend Richard Petty. In addition Natasha is very involved with various charity organizations regularly donating to “The Country Music Hall Of Fame,” The Elvis Presley Charitable Foundation (Presley Place) Nascar’s affiliated Victory Junction Gang Camp, and the CSRO (The Canadian Spinal Research Organization).
Opal was born in Montreal, Quebec and later moved to Ottawa. She focused her talents first, at the Ottawa School of Art (1997 – 1999) and later The Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (1999 – 2000).
“My art is an exploration of myself and my background. Being of mixed race, growing up was difficult to find something to connect myself with, not clearly fitting into one or the other of any group. One question that always was presented to me was “Where are you from?” I try to answer that question through my art and particularly through the portrait.
I use a number of different mediums in order to get the right texture and feel for the piece. Oil and acrylic paint as well as plaster, encaustic and chalk and fabric.
Opal created the artwork for The Monument by Colleen Wagner presented by The Obsidian Theatre Company March 2006.
“Opal creates for us images of people that tell us something about what it means to be human. The eyes are usually her point of access, to the feelings and thoughts of the people that occupy the canvas.” - Joan Spence, Director, Spence Gallery
Born (1975) in Kingston Ontario Canada, Paul Robert Turner attended the Ontario College of Art and Design (Toronto) from 1994 to 1998. Upon completion of the Drawing and Painting program, he then studied traditional drawing at the Michael John Angel Academy of Art.
Paul is a Canadian Figurative Oil Painter living and working in Toronto Canada and is a co –founder of AWOL Collective, Gallery and Studios. Paul is a recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grant, and received the Viewers Choice Award for the 2007 Kingston Prize, Canada’s only national portrait competition. His work can be found in private collections in Canada, England, France, Israel and the United States.
Chelsea artist Reid McLachlan explores what it means to be human through faith, identity and mortality in his dramatic figurative paintings. These works focus on the artist’s own personal ghosts, but they also speak to the hopes, worries and fears in all of us.
“In my paintings I am exploring the universal themes of the human condition and searching for meaning, understanding and hope in our self-centred, material obsessed society.”
Although born in Pointe Claire, Quebec, Reid spent his formative years growing up in a non-descript East-end Ottawa neighbourhood. Obsessed with drawing as a teen, he took night courses and attended an arts high school in Ottawa for 2 years. He then went to the Ontario College of Art in Toronto and spent his final year of study at the OCA campus in Florence, Italy. Reid graduated with Honours and a number of awards in 1987. Since then he has painted continuously and prolifically, first in Toronto, then Ottawa, and for the last 17 years at his studio in beautiful Chelsea, Quebec.
Reid has exhibited in Canada, the U.S. and in Italy, and his work can be found in public and private collections throughout North America. He has had solo shows at many of the public and private galleries in Ottawa/Gatineau.
Born in 1976 and raised in Hamilton, Ontario, Sara began her pursuit as an artist from a very early age. Following a childhood full of art making on her own, she began formal life drawing and painting classes at the age of 15.
At 19 Sniderhan moved to Toronto and attended The Angel Academy of Art (now known as The Academy of Realist Art), studying classical realism and making drawings and paintings from old master works, plaster casts and the live model. Sara now exhibits her work with Ingram Gallery in Toronto and Calgary.
In addition to pursuing her career as a painter, Sara has become a well respected teacher of drawing, painting and art history. She has taught art for The Toronto Montessori Schools, The Angel Academy of Art, privately and has received numerous grants to teach and make art within communities throughout Toronto. In 2007 Sara opened her own art school called The Leslieville School of Art. Upon invitation from The University of Toronto, she has created and delivered lectures for 3 art history courses.
Sara Sniderhan currently lives and works in Toronto with her husband and 2 children.
Shannon Reynolds is a Canadian artist who lives and works in downtown Kitchener. She is a graduate of the University of Waterloo’s fine arts program and also holds an MA in English literature.
Shannon is fascinated by portraiture as a record of individuals, as a social document of status denied or proferred, and as evidence of transactions between artist and model.
Her recent work attempts to broach the gap between private and public audiences with portrait series that move beyond documentation to both engage and solicit the critical judgment of a general audience.
Shannon’s work has appeared in solo shows at several regional galleries, and many group shows. Her Dramatis Personae series, which drew an analogy to theatre and worked “at the intersection of word & image” was featured in full-colour in The New Quarterly literary journal (Issue 95) in 2007, The Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery specially commissioned Shannon to create a painting for their recurrent faceLIFT series, in which she paired a life-size group portrait with audio recordings. Her paintings are in private collections across North America.
Stefan studied sculpture at the School of Applied Art and Design in Europe where he worked in clay and stone. After moving to Toronto, he continued his education in the Continuing Education Department at Ontario College of Art.
In the 1960s, Stefan worked with charcoal and egg tempera, depicting imaginative figures and portraits. After moving to Toronto, his work became more experimental in nature. In the early 1970s, his work distorted the body to anamorphic images, developing a sense of mobility. In the late 1970s, he started his "Suitcase" series, placing the human form into a defined space. In his most recent work he is placing figures against the landscape with the figures absorbed in rituals, forming beliefs and giving thanks.
Landscape and Cityscape holds a special, magical place in his creative output. With capturing the movement of traffic and lights is making the viewer to interact or to hold a silent dialog with the city streets.
Stefan's work is on display in corporate and private collections in North America and Europe, Upper Gallery, Christien Gallery, Printziples Fine Art Gallery in Toronto and Donner Gallery in Europe.
He is a member and past elected officer of the Ontario Society of Artists, founded in 1872 and the oldest art society in Upper Canada.
Stefan teaches drawing, acrylic and oil painting at the George Brown College and is an owner of Stefan Galvanek Fine Art School and Studio in Toronto and also teaches at Parry Sound in Canadore College. He participated in over 100 art exhibitions.
1986 Award. OSA Most Original Artwork.
2006 Award. George Brown College Teaching Excellence.
2007 Award Newmarket Best Painting in the Show.
Tom Campbell left home for England when he was 17 to study painting. He received a Fine Arts BA from Camberwell School of Art in London, tutored by some of the greats of British painting including Leon Kossoff and Ewen Uglow. On returning to Canada, his first major one-man show was held at The Gallery Stratford in 1985 a year after winning the Art Forms Prize at The Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery. Also at this time, his present dealer, the Bau-Xi Gallery in Toronto and Vancouver, began representing him. His work has been featured on the TV documentary ‘Artists in the Urban Environment’, sponsored by the AGO.
As well as having a string of successful exhibitions, Campbell has had other projects such as painting the giant shipwreck mural in John Greyson’s feature film ‘Zero Patience’, and being artist in residence at the Hellenic Cultural Centre in Greece, where he hosts a group of painters each spring.
His work is represented in collections as far afield as Dubai, through Europe, the USA and Canada.
Travis Shilling is a portrait based artist, but also uses landscape and urban situations as his subject matter. His focus is the restless sitter and the silent relationship between the artist and the subject that drives and challenges each portrait. For Travis it is not only the physical painting that motivates him, it is also the spiritual connection that must occur in order to finish or keep a piece.
Since he started painting fifteen years ago, Travis has understood how important it is to first learn and appreciate all aspects of painting. He began at the very basic fundamentals and believes he may not have even started painting yet.
His other and equally important mediums include video, writing and sculpture. Recently forming his own theatre company Travis hopes to inspire and motivate other young writers to express themselves on the stage. He justifies this move to theatre and video by simply stating that art is in everything, the stage is a canvas in which the paint and subjects are allowed to move and speak.
He has also recently began his first feature film.
Travis Shilling has exhibited across North America and recently began showing in London England.
Veronica is an internationally renowned portrait Artist, First Place award Winner and Peoples choice Award Winner in the International Portrait Competition, Toronto 2002. She is a member of the Arts and Letters Club and the founder of the Portrait Society of Canada.
Following in the footsteps of the old masters, Veronica builds the value of accurate drawing, beauty of representing the personality, and importance of content in painting. Veronica dedicated her formative years to mastering drawing and painting and took every opportunity to perfect her skill both in Toronto and abroad. Taking Classes in Surikov Academy of Fine Art Arts and studying Greek Orthodox Iconography in Agia Mina Monastery, Cyprus. Along the way she earned a Bachelor Degree in Art History from Moscow State University.
Recent notable commissions include Mr. Mike Maedy (CEO Canon Canada), Sonja Bata (Bata Shoe Museum), Countess Von Wedel, Bishop Michael of Canada, Steam Whistle Founders, Dmitri Hvorostovski and many others.
Veronica has been involved in group and solo exhibitions in Canada, Germany and Cyprus. Recent Shows include John B, Aird Gallery, Imagine Art Gallery, Grimsby Public Art Gallery, St Marks Coptic Museum, Gallery 7 Yorkville, Toronto Heliconian Club and A&l Club of Toronto.
Wageh is a self-taught, dedicated portrait artist who has been practicing for twenty years and has experience in various mediums, but is currently working in oil and watercolour. Portraits are his passion. A portrait to Wageh is a window into a person's world; showing all the emotions that people go through. His interest is to capture that emotion on paper.
Wageh's current focus is watercolour, he feels this is an amazing medium to use, sometimes it gives you more than you had planned. His aim is to make the colours the focal point of the painting, by throwing the colours on to the paper and letting them flow naturally.
In 2008, Wageh was one of the top finalists in the Portrait Society of Canada's Winter Contest. He also has designed the covers of Nobel Prize-Winner Nagib Mahfooze's books and has been commissioned for various works displayed in homes and businesses around Toronto, such as a portrait of Dr. Uldall hanging in Wellesley Hospital.
© 2009
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