Xiao Wen Xu’s artistic practice is influenced by her contemplative love of the natural environment. Her two current interests are an oil painting series, Minimal Skies, and a watercolour painting series, Rainbowland Leaves. Minimal Skies is inspired by skies she’s seen and photographed. The paintings are abstracted forms of skies with everything eliminated except for the colour gradient, evoking simplicity and serenity. Rainbowland Leaves is a collection of works painted from life using a wet-on-wet technique with watercolour and acrylic gouache. Capturing the realistic shapes of leaves using bold and bright imaginary colours, she seeks to convey her happiness and joy experienced from such a vivid palette and the natural forms of her subject with the viewer; to offer an escape into a “new romantic world”.
Xiao Wen Xu
Xiao Wen Xu is a Chinese-born Canadian self-taught artist in Toronto. She graduated from the University of Waterloo with a Master of Architecture in 2018.
After graduation, she worked at an a... rchitecture firm for three years, while painting in her free time and participating in juried exhibitions. In 2021, she started painting full-time. Her artwork has been exhibited at the Ontario Association of Architects Headquarters, John B. Aird Gallery, and the Art Gallery of Hamilton.
STATEMENT
THUNDERSTORM
PHOTOGRAPHY, GICLEE
8x10 ed 5
$240 framed OR $15/month | $120 print only
DAILY TRAVEL
PHOTOGRAPHY
10x8 ed 5
$240 framed OR $15/month | $120 print only
Marisha Pula
Marisha Pula studied illustration and design at OCAD University. She works with mediums ranging from gouache and acrylic to resin and wood, sculpture and pencil work. She is a member of Workman Arts... Collective, which advocates for and supports artists working with mental health and/or addictions. Her work focuses on environmental and social issues, with a strong emphasis on climate change and its effects on North American wildlife.
Currently she is in an exploratory phase, experimenting with photography.
When she is not completing her own projects she also works as a restoration artist specializing in sculpture repair at Dorset Fine Arts.
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Over the summer and the previous year I found it difficult to find time to paint. I was in between two places four hours apart, living in the city and in the woods. I gravitated towards photography to capture both places, because it was instant. I saw an image, I shot it, I had it. A deliberate precision that I’ve never experienced while painting. The largest difference became apparent when my dog passed ; I had hundreds of photos of her and no longer could take any, but I could keep painting her from memory. I didn’t include her image in this series, but she will always be close. This series depicts my family now, without her. This series depicts the places we’ve been, without her. Sometimes it’s what’s not pictured that has the hardest hit on your memories.
These artworks are also available to Rent. Please contact Josh Vettivelu to learn more or read the Art Sales & Rental About page for further details.
Barbara Szymanska
Obsessively fascinated by this wondrous existence called life, focused on producing art that deconstructs and explores the age old question of what is consciousness, reality, relationship, and the e... ver elusive ``I``.
My first artistic education as a child was to deeply observe everything. I spent huge amount of time in isolation and silence. I believe that this was the most crucial aspect which later shaped my meditative creative process while experimenting with various mediums and expressions.
Art makes us feel something. It moves us. It changes our outlook. It digs itself far into our subconscious, into the world of archetypes, beliefs, symbols and associations. I enjoy creating work that i can communicate with, when there are no right words to articulate the truths of life. Art at its best can communicate the truths of life, not just as facts, but as feelings, as a deep knowing which we recognize. It is through that feeling that it touches our essence, and I am grateful that I am able to occasionally saturate in its timeless language, and from time to time frolic with others.
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At the boundary where my eyes are, it appears as if there is a world out there, and another one in here. I shuffle my legs forward but it could be a moving picture. At moments I feel trapped inside of a shell, one with small holes that seem to open to “out there”. On the other, “inner” side, the immense.
These artworks are also available to Rent. Please contact Josh Vettivelu to learn more or read the Art Sales & Rental About page for further details.
Anja Sagan
Born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Anja Sagan is a filmmaker, artist, co-author of an international bestselling book, actor and poet with lived experience of mental illness.
Drawing on thei... r studies in Shamanism, archetypal mythology and sacred love, Anja combines them with the powerful, mythic elements of Nature in their work. Anja views their journey through mental illness as a kind-of portal of self-realization and the opening of their gifts. When we ‘break’, there is a humility and depth of understanding that comes from piecing one’s self back together, as well as a tremendous appreciation for life and every experience.
Anja wants the viewer to explore the beauty and meaning in our lives as spiritual beings, the mythological pulse that is the heartbeat of our existence.
Anja invites us to experience the beauty and magnificence of nature, the human form as well as our place in the cosmos. Anja adamantly believes we are so much more than the labels we have had imposed onto us (based on things like gender, race, religion, socioeconomic background etc.) Anja asserts that while those things may describe aspects of us, as infinite universal consciousness living in human form - our potential is not defined by our bodies but instead, by That which animates it.
Anja’s work is created using multiple media including acrylic, pastel, printed mylar, encaustic, gold leaf and occasionally, found objects from nature.
Anja is inspired by artists such as Susan Seddon-Boulet, Joyce Wieland, Michaelangelo Buonarroti, and Gustav Klimt as well as filmmakers like Akira Kurosawa, and Guillermo Del Toro.
Anja holds a diploma from OCADU in graphic design and an Honours BA in Fine Art from the University of Guelph. Since graduating they studied sculpture at Central Technical School and for over a year with prominent Toronto sculptor, Adrienne Alison (d. 2019) and with another Toronto-based painter, Grethe Jensen. When not writing, painting or creating films, Anja can be found traveling, wilderness camping, hiking, cycling or being human furniture for her beloved animal companions.
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This piece is called “The Road To Recovery”. It is an echo of what I experienced while I was living with the most acute symptoms of my multiple diagnoses. Everything around me felt grey and lifeless. Only my son and my mother seemed real, only they held any meaning and depth to me. I felt like who I once knew myself to be was gone and all that was left was a buzzing hornet’s nest of stinging, negative thoughts. I felt very isolated, alone and grossly inadequate as a parent.
It was a catharsis to create this piece. It helped me release some of the guilt I felt at not being all a parent ‘should’ be. My mother and I went for countless walks in shopping malls back then and she helped me give my son’s life some semblance of normalcy.
It has been a long journey from there. Though at the time I wouldn’t have believed it possible, at length, I actually found my life’s passion. With my son’s and mother’s love, my Shamanic training and my involvement with Workman Arts – I have grown tremendously as a parent and a human being over the past fifteen years.
The photos were taken on my old cell phone from that time period.
These artworks are also available to Rent. Please contact Josh Vettivelu to learn more or read the Art Sales & Rental About page for further details.
Angela Walcott
Angela Walcott is a Toronto-based multi-disciplinary artist and arts educator. She has a broad interest in sustainability, African-Canadian settlement/immigration patterns and community building. A ... variety of media helps to strengthen her narrative including found word art, collage, clay, textiles, watercolour and natural dyes.
She has served as a jury member for the Workman Arts Mentor Selection Committee; a visual arts youth mentor for Project Humanity (PH 1:1) in partnership with Covenant House. Angela acts as a facilitator for Eco Art & Design: Reusing, Reducing and Upcycling Principles which is part of a virtual workshop series. In partnership with Workman Arts and North York Arts satellite program, the program aims to find creative solutions for waste management problems with an artistic lens.
Her visual art has been exhibited at YYZ Outlet, Project Gallery, Propeller Gallery, The Legislative Assembly and ‘The Gathering Divergence’ (a virtual exhibit).
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Future House can serve as a representation of the future and also of the past. How we as a society are finding new ways to exist and co-exist in a world that is not what it used to be is at the cornerstone of a continuous conversation. Future House builds on developing pathways to restoration. This tool can help us to bring our shared experiences together as we emerge through this pandemic pandemonium.
The objective to create a visual representation of what the future will hold is ultimately an important task for the viewer. ‘What will the future look like and how will the communities situated within them interact with one another?’ are some good questions to consider as nations strive to navigate both honestly and respectfully, the difficulties associated with our times and how the approaching ‘future’ will ultimately sustain us when we are at our most vulnerable.
These artworks are also available to Rent. Please contact Josh Vettivelu to learn more or read the Art Sales & Rental About page for further details.
Gregg McGivern
Gregg Allan McGivern is a prolific, multidisciplinary artist that experiments with many different forms of substrates, materials and mediums to create art. He has various styles from traditional wat... ercolours; abstract/semi-abstract and impressionistic paintings to fine life renderings. He is an outsider, self-taught artist and considers himself a serial painter as he usually creates art in groups of ten. He has sold art to collectors locally, in Europe, Russia and the Middle East. He is now experimenting with wood burned panels and paint, as well as all forms of textile art and sculptures both hard and soft.
STATEMENT
As a Zen Buddhist and a spiritual person, that has had past experiences with mental health issues, being balanced in mind, body and spirit is my goal. I have noticed lately that “this seeking balance” has been slowly creeping into my artwork and my latest series called BALANCE has brought this to fruition. These two pieces are the first in the series of ten. Each one is wood burned and painted on a wooden panel. The characters within the painting are couples maintaining these balance positions that have now become parallel to my actual life.
These artworks are also available to Rent. Please contact Josh Vettivelu to learn more or read the Art Sales & Rental About page for further details.
Alan Parker
``I attended the Ontario College of Art in the early 1970s; it was a chaotic experience. I found sanctuary in Frederick Hagan’s printmaking shop. This interest in the drawing and painting aspects ... of and the history in fine art printmaking set my path.
When I went to art school, we were told (constantly), that to be an artist one must become a businessman. Non-sense. We are bombarded, 24/7, by commercialism. Afterall, I can do what you can not do; same territory, different pathway.``
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From Jaques Barzun, The Us and Abuse of Art:
“The aggressiveness and hypocrisy we find as we look about are part and parcel of a relatively free social existence. Individuality survives thanks to the balance between them.”
These artworks are also available to Rent. Please contact Josh Vettivelu to learn more or read the Art Sales & Rental About page for further details.