An Original Visual Language: Art by Michael Kilgore
Michael Kilgore is a mixed media artist who works in paint, pastel, collage, and other materials. In his practice, Michael builds stylized images that draw on the aesthetics of 20th century art movements such as Cubism and Expressionism, blending these styles with a modern take on traditional African art to create an original visual language.
Woman in purple platform shoes
I really enjoy Michael’s figurative works in mixed…
Organic Subject Matter: Art by Peter Barron
The Conversation (diptych), acrylic and oil on panel
Peter Barron is an artist based in Ontario. In his decades-spanning artistic practice, Peter has worked in oil, watercolour, ink, and other traditional media, producing abstracted works that are densely packed with colourful forms, evoking florals, geological features, and other organic subject matter.
Lovers with Green Fish Under a Dark Moon, acrylic and oil on plywood
I like the…
Organic Brush Marks: Art by Ken Herren
Carioca, acrylic-infused pumice on canvas
Ken Herren is a painter who blends wildly abstract, organic brush marks with strict, geometrically patterned compositions and cohesive colour schemes. The artist’s body of work speaks of contrast and visual reconciliation between the artist’s rural upbringing and his current urban lifestyle.
Django, acrylic-infused pumice on canvas
I really enjoy the thick, heavy textures of Ken’s…
Quietly Exuberant: A Drawing Portfolio by Tony Ziegler
Tony Ziegler is a traditional artist and illustrator who has exhibited mainly in New York and Massachusetts. In his practice, the artist uses a variety of two-dimensional drawing materials -- such as graphite, pencil crayon, and acrylic paint-- to produce thoughtful, quietly exuberant slice-of-life scenes and portraits.
I really enjoy the way Tony uses colour in his works -- the artist goes beyond simply…
Symmetrical Compositions: The Art Portfolio of Carolyn Trotter
India niche #2, acrylic on stretched canvas
Carolyn Trotter is a Vancouver-born artist whose work is inspired by natural forms and organic energies. The artist often takes a meditative approach to her work, using symmetrical compositions and repeating patterns to express the unique shape of plants and other biological subjects.
Mexican Moon, acrylic on canvas
The artist’s gallery of sketches provides an interesting insight into…
The Interdisciplinary Art Portfolio of Marie-Hélène Tessier
Froment fromenté, cabaret inside an exhibition by Aurélien Fromen
Marie-Hélène Tessier (aka Marianne Tisserand) is a Vancouver-based multimedia artist who uses elements of writing, performance, and collaboration in her works. The artist’s practice is prolific, deeply philosophical and occasionally esoteric, with Marie incorporating elements of a range of disciplines to examine relationships, social mores, and language.…
Physicality and the Body: Art by Caroline Boileau
From the series Hors d'elle, watercolour on paper
Caroline Boileau is an artist who works with drawing, performance, and installation, often combining disciplines to create holistic explorations of the human body and its relationship to a given environment. Much of Caroline’s work examines the subject of physicality and the body through a distinctly feminine lens.
From the series Pharmacopée, watercolour on paper
I love…
An Art Therapy Praxis and Portfolio by Angela Scalisi
Angela Scalisi’s artistic practice involves both personal artworks, and works created as part of an art therapy praxis, with the collaboration and participation of others. Following studies in Chicago and Boston, the artist has worked as a care partner for those with Alzheimer’s, cancer, and other illnesses.
Understanding the artist’s background and work in the medical field, the aesthetics of Angela’s…
Flower Blossoms: A Painting Portfolio by Linda Wagner
Linda Wagner is a watercolour and oil painter based in British Columbia. In her practice, Linda paints detailed, figurative landscapes as well as working in a more abstracted style, rendering flower blossoms in dreamy, softly curving brush strokes.
I really love the works in Linda’s Pods & Florals series -- the artworks here are occasionally reminiscent of Georgia O’Keeffe…
Behind the Visible: The Photography Portfolio of Paul Thomann
Chemical 8A, direct chemically manipulated photographic paper
Paul Thomann is a Swiss artist currently based in Chicago. In his practice, Paul is a photographer and filmmaker, blending slice-of-life, documentary-style images with a slight leaning toward abstraction, conceptualism, and a deeper meaning behind the visible.
It’s interesting to see the varied ways in which Paul presents the photographic image,…
A Portfolio of Landscapes, Portraits, and Nudes by David Quinlan
Endlesss as a mighty ocean, oil on canvas
David Quilan is an oil painter born and raised in the UK and later based in New Zealand. The artist has a background in architecture, though his paintings are primarily focused around landscapes, portraiture, and nudes.
Last Years Wiltshire Rams, oil on canvas
David’s painting style has a gestural quality about it that suggests a carefree attitude and approach to painting -- knowing of the…
Activism and Performance: The Art Portfolio of Leenda Bonilla
Sofa-Seat detail #1 (from Atraversa)
Leenda Bonilla is an interdisciplinary artist who incorporates elements of activism and performance into each work. Born in New York City and raised between the Bronx and Puerto Rico, the artist’s activist work focuses on building relationships between immigrant communities, businesses, and officials through arts activities.
Leenda notes in her artist statement that her artistic…
Vitality and Decay: An Art Portfolio by Rachel Lambert
Aspen Rug, faux fur, embroidery, floss, wire
Rachel Lambert’s artistic practice encompasses a wide range of media and techniques, from land art and interventions in nature, to photography, to soft sculpture, to two-dimensional media. Much of the artist’s work deals with nature, embracing both vitality and decay; elements of beauty where one might not expect to find them.
Harvest Moon Eclipse, photograph
Looking through…
The Art Portfolio of Oil Painter Beverly Parson White
Fall Barn (triptych), oil on canvas
Beverly Parson White is an oil painter and artist based in Texas. In her practice, Beverly creates portrait and landscape paintings, as well as a variety of crocheted crafts.
2 Pot Holders and 1 Wash/Dish Cloth, crocheted cotton
I like the textured, painterly atmosphere of the artist’s canvases -- the artist is adept at varying her brush marks and using specific methods of mark-making to evoke…
Memory Formation and Recollection: Art by Jeannie Polisuk
Jeannie Polisuk is a painter and sculptor based in eastern Canada. In her artistic practice, Jeannie creates two and three-dimensional artworks that use a symbolic visual language to address themes of memory formation and recollection through sentimental objects.
Soap as a Yardstick of Civilization, stuffed toys, yardstick
As we saw in our previous feature of Jeannie’s darkly iconographic artwork, an image of…