Exploring Imagination: Art by Stephanie Cormier
Stephanie Cormier is a Toronto-based artist who works with various media, including found objects and unexpected construction materials, to create strange assemblages exploring imagination. The artist’s works take on an appearance that’s at once alien and vaguely familiar, like an object from a dream.
The artist’s recent series Something From Nothing is made up of works that express imaginary objects. As…
Music and Social Justice: An Art Portfolio by Marilyn Nelson
East to the West, oil on canvas
Marilyn Nelson’s artistic practice is inspired by music and social justice, both significant interests for the artist herself. The artist’s paintings tend to be abstract, though in recent works, Marilyn has experimented with the addition of text.
Where is the love?, oil on canvas
I her ongoing series Subliminal Reflections, Marilyn uses a musical lens to explore concepts of not only abstract…
Textural Mixed Media: An Art Portfolio by Mary Chalmers Main
Mary Chalmers Main is an artist who works in paint and textiles, creating colourful abstract and figurative works. Mary paints a variety of subjects with a painterly, gestural hand, sometimes incorporating textural mixed media details.
Vincent's model, acrylic on canvas
The works in Mary’s Acrylic Paintings gallery evoke peaceful, almost pastoral natural scenes. While the artist sometimes incorporates elements of…
A Portfolio of Vibrant Artworks by Vesa Peltonen
Vesa Peltonen is an artist based on Ontario. In his practice, Vesa utilizes bright colour and a digital aesthetic, often blending photography and forms of digital manipulation and painting to create intensely vibrant artworks.
Vesa’s art portfolio spans a wide range of subjects, from musicians, to landscapes, to more bizarre, experimental abstract imagery. The artist’s recent abstract works are a…
Spirituality and Connection: The Art Portfolio of Chía Ortegón
Candice, coloured pencils, gold leaf, acrylic paint on wood
Chía Ortegón is an artist originally from Bogota, Colombia. Chía’s artworks span a range of media and styles, though the artist imbues every work with a sense of spirituality and connection.
In our previous feature of Chía’s transcendental art, we looked at the artist’s abstract paintings and portraiture, and the way that she sometimes combines…
Calling Attention: The Art Portfolio of Barry Scanlan
The Road to Extinction, acrylic on newspaper
Barry Scanlan is a mixed media artist who often uses his practice as a method of calling attention to social, political, and environmental issues. Barry’s works tend to be colourful and stylized, incorporating text that lends each piece a punk or DIY-esque aesthetic.
Profits. Wealth. Money. Nothing Else Matters, acrylic and paint pens on newspaper
Barry’s recent series of work, …
Geometric Abstraction: The Art Portfolio of Graham Hall
Graham Hall is an artist who, in recent years, has been producing works of geometric abstraction. The artist tends to use acrylic paint to create his images, though his technique embraces every facet of the acrylic media, sometimes with hard, clean edges and other times with textured, painterly strokes.
Provincial Wonder Place, acrylic on canvas
I really enjoy the works in Graham’s 2017 series Secret Work.…
Whimsical and Technical: The Art Portfolio of John Brickels
John Brickels is a sculptor who works with slab and extruded stoneware clay to create intricate figures of buildings, machines, cars, and robots. The artist’s works sometimes combine clay with found objects for a look that’s both whimsical and technical.
In our previous feature of John’s artworks, we looked at the artist’s cartoonish Americana aesthetic. I enjoy the way that John offsets his…
A Portfolio of Photographs and Paintings by Joseph Peter Sullivan
Joseph Peter Sullivan has lived throughout the United States and continues to travel, though he is currently based in Minneapolis. The artist creates photographs and paintings that express an interest in abstraction through light, shadow, and texture.
I really enjoy Joseph’s photographs. These works play with the viewer’s expectations of what a photograph can be, and what information it can reveal or…
Canada's Prairies: The Art Portfolio of David B. Scott
Last Giant Standing, oil on canvas
Painter David B. Scott was born in New Zealand and spent time throughout Europe and North America before coming to Canada. The artist’s current body of work focuses on the natural landscape of Canada’s prairies, with occasional architectural and animal figures.
Looking Through, oil on canvas
I really appreciate the level of detail in David’s paintings. The artist’s recent works in particular…
Energy and Heart: The Art Portfolio of Angela R. Green
Angela R. Green is an artist and poet who explores a variety of subjects in her paintings and visual art. The artist often draws inspiration from music and other forms of expression, resulting in visual pieces that are imbued with a great sense of energy and heart.
I like the way Angela explores different styles of painting as she switches between different subjects. In her series The…
A Naturalist Approach: The Art Portfolio of Jan Pearson
her path, acrylic on wrapped canvas
Jan Pearson takes a naturalist approach to painting, rendering her subjects in a gestural, almost abstracted quality that suggests movement and ethereality. Growing up in rural Missouri, the artist has been inspired by nature, an inspiration that’s reflected in both her subject matter and style.
There’s a wonderful sense of movement in almost all of Jan’s paintings – though an…
Dramatic Portraits: The Painting Portfolio of Nocona Burgess
Nocona Burgess is an artist and a member of the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma. In his artistic practice, Nocona paints powerful, often dramatic portraits of native American people from different nations around North America.
The artist’s paintings are made all the more striking by his use of monochromatic backgrounds, sometimes incorporating geometric elements. There’s a contrast at play here between the…
Figures and Bodies: The Art Portfolio of Jon Duci
Living Daylights, acrylic on canvas
Long Island, NY artist Jon Duci creates works of painting, drawing, and collage that explore human forms. In his work, Jon stretches the conventional depictions of figures and bodies to a point of near abstraction, creating works that are fascinating blend of figurative painting, abstract art, and body horror.
Ear Op, acrylic on canvas (album art for Los Doggies)
I find Jon’s paintings and…
Gothic Scenes: The Art Portfolio of Rebecca Chaperon
Rebecca Chaperon is an artist based in Vancouver, BC, who specializes in dreamy, gothic scenes and narrative illustrations. The artist works in a lush, painterly style with deeply saturated hues of green, blue, and pink.
I really enjoy the somewhat gestural quality of Rebecca’s painting style, and the way the artist adjusts her technique to be more -- or less -- detailed…