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.
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Suma
Suma (Susana Meza) (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist from Venezuela who creates hand-crafted sculptures, textiles, drawings, and paintings that help the artist cope with the world around and ... inside.
Suma’s work is infused with intentional happiness and responds to their recovery journey and lived experience of addiction, mental health, mourning, migration, multicultural identity, and the ever-constant exploration of the inner light.
Suma works on their art practice and also serves as an arts facilitator, certified peer-support worker, and currently, is a Newcomer Artist Ambassador for MABELLEarts, board of directors of the North York Women Centre, a member of Workman Arts’ Member Advisory Committee, an XOXO Downsview Jury Member, and the founder of ReclaimedArts.ca.
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Fluff: The first of a series of cats made with acrylic yarn and a tufting gun, Fluff was inspired by early cartoons from the 1920s and Summer colours, nature, and the unusual way cats see us.
A Forest for Maria Lionza: Maria Lionza is a sacred figure for many Venezuelans, the cult towards this mystical and mythical woman has fascinated me, and now, thousands of miles away from the mountain where her devotees gather, in my own and honest way I praise the protector of our flora and fauna
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.
VICISSITUDES
OIL PAINT ON WOOD PANEL
24x18 in
$720.00 | $18/month
Shannon Taylor-Jones
Shannon Taylor-Jones is an emerging interdisciplinary artist working in Toronto and London, Ontario. She obtained a BFA with a major in Drawing and Painting from OCAD University in 2016, and a post-... graduate certificate from Centennial College in Museum and Cultural Management in 2018. She is a current resident artist at Good Sport, an art collective, gallery, and studio space in London, Ontario.
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This work is a study of the creative processes of living and being: looking into the creative processes of plants, fungi, and other organic matter as non-linear practices of growth and decay. The detritus is the answer to one question and the ask of another. Existing as the layered (un)domestication of interwoven life forms, including the pathologized mind, these pieces exist as fragments of larger processes. Through layers and intersections of care, the inevitability of transience remains.
Ann Davidson
Ann Davidson is a Toronto-based visual artist who feels a deep connection to nature. Visions of water, rocks and trees inspire her detailed acrylic paintings and photographic interpretations of Lake... Huron, Georgian Bay, Lake Simcoe, the Rideau Lakes, the East Coast of Canada and the USA as well as London and Scotland. A former commercial artist, Ann studied at Sheridan College, The Ontario College of Art, and the Three Schools of Art. She has been represented in Toronto Galleries both Public and Commercial. Selected Toronto Collectors include: The Foundation for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, The Hospital for Sick Children, The Law Society of Upper Canada and The Canadian Imperial Bank of Canada.
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From an early age I discovered I could explore and communicate the intensity of my moods through the arts – painting, music, photography and film-making and have been doing so for years. Although a city-dweller, summer trips to Ontario lakelands fuel my creative inspirations. Drawn to water’s mystery, movement and reflections I find endless material to draw on. Small watercolour paintings, sketches, and photos done on location serve as reference to work from in my studio near Lake Ontario where I get out for walks in park-lands to be in nature. In the city I find stimulation from galleries, city-scapes and the people at Workman Arts in a supportive community.
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.
AMANDA
ACRYLIC & INK ON CANVAS
30x20in
480.00 | $15/month
Eduardo Hatch
Eduardo Hatch is a self-taught artist. His paintings reflect real as well as imaginary life experiences. He works both figuratively and expressively, preferring pure, spontaneous color combinations,... form, movement and brightness. For Eduardo, painting is a source of joy, healing power and a haven where he creates a beautiful, colorful world.
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.
THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS
SOLAGRAPH, ARCHIVAL PIGMENT PRINT
20x24in ed 1/3
$1320 framed OR $33/month | $960 print only OR $24.00/month
Sean Patenaude
Sean Patenaude works in a combination of film and digital processes to capture striking, emotional images that invite the viewer to imagine the story beyond the frame.
Since 2013, Sean has be... en deeply involved with the mental health community in Toronto, leading photography workshops at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, World Pride, Workman Arts, and other organizations. His photography has been central to his own wellness and recovery from depression and anxiety, and his greatest joy lies in helping others discover their own talent and creativity through image-making.
Sean has made images for Workman Arts, the Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival, the Suits Me Fine Fashion Show and many other organizations. His work has been displayed at Hart House, Artscape Youngplace, the Gladstone Hotel, and the Contact Photography Festival.
Sean's pictures have been published internationally in books, magazines and online. In 2018, Sean was commissioned to create a Therapeutic Art Installation documenting the construction of two new buildings at CAMH. The resulting six large prints, collectively titled “watching the time pass by the sun” are on permanent display in the McCain Complex Care and Recovery Building.
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The works I’m showing in Being Scene 2022 are solargraphs – multi-month photographic exposures captured through pinhole cameras I made myself. These images were made between 2019 and 2021, taken from various locations on the CAMH site, documenting the construction of two new hospital buildings. The streaks of light in the pictures reflect the passage of the sun across the sky during each day of the exposures. I love this process for how it collapses a year into a single frame.
Because of the super-long exposures involved, the original negatives, recorded on traditional silver-based photo paper, remain light-sensitive and can never be made permanent. They can’t be developed or fixed without being destroyed, for the paper has been pushed beyond its limits. Even the light from the scanner used to record the pictures for printing damages them during the scan.
I made these because I wanted to express how each day marks us in ways we can only see in retrospect. The building of a hospital echoes the experiences of those who will attend it. Healing takes time, and patience, and the changes mark us like sunlight on paper, glimpsed through a tiny hole in the dark.
There are four lights: exposure July 2018 – September 2019, 425 days
There will always be a storm: exposure May 2019 – September 2019, 114 days
200 sunsets: exposure July 2019 – February 2020, 203 days
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.
Kurt Rostek
Kurt Rostek is a Toronto Canada based artist who calls himself, “just a simple painter”. There is however nothing simple about his history as an artist. His studio and exhibit history go back ov... er 30 years, with a long association with Artists 25, a collective based in west end Toronto.
He was born in Toronto but raised in what was rural Ontario, now subdivisions and golf courses. His earlier works were water colour studies of birds, a theme that still occasionally pops up in his work and has since grown into large scale oil paintings.
His practice has since grown with constant reinvention. His mantra being that change is the only absolute truth. Every series he delves into gives him visual opportunities to explore his visual world from a different point of view.
The work he has so immersed himself in has influence from artists and movements as broad as Cubism, The Bauhaus, Abstract Expressionism, Painters 11, and the Automatistes. Formal education in his life has included a Visual Arts Diploma, Centennial College, Architectural Technologist Certificate, Ryerson University, and Fine Arts Studio York University (2 years).
Kurt’s work has been exhibited in Toronto galleries, as well as in New York City and once in Beijing. He has had the good fortune of having his work hang in private as well as public collections worldwide.
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The last 2 years have presented numerous challenges to everyone. The beginning of Covid isolation had me exploring past travel opportunities that have fallen away from my life, the result was a number of watercolours. However I needed to explore my creative life with something more immediate and intimate.
Plein air painting was a mode of work that had informed some of the past narrative of my life. My eyes became open with my mind to landscape painting once again. The paintings I’m submitting reflect a new clarity. They represent actual plein air work as well as the resulting abstractions.
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.
Skylar Cheung
Skylar Cheung is a Toronto-based oil and textile artist. She strives to call attention to underrepresented subjects through her art. Such subjects include wildlife protection and unpaid womxn's labo... r.
She is also an undergraduate studying political science at the University of Toronto, where she is also serving an Undergraduate Fellowship in the Ethics of AI at their Centre for Ethics. Skylar strives to use art as both an educational medium and as a prompt for reflection. Her work has been shown in venues such as Arts Etobicoke, Myseum, and the Joint Math Meetings' Bridges Gallery in Denver, Colorado.
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This stool pays homage to the paper cuttings Matisse made. In using simple shapes, he was able to realize complex shapes and ideas as simple silhouettes. I pay attention to the idea of intersection in arranging these blobs and flourishes on the embroidered top of this stool.
The perceived “overlaps” calls attention to the way in which objects can share spaces by means of just intersecting. Just as in art, the practice of intersection and overlap is vital to a healthy thriving community. Especially given the joined power of collectives and the lack of space to accommodate individuals alone, I hope this piece reminds audiences of the way in which interactions contribute to the vitality of their quotidian life.
For this piece, I also chose to lay the embroidery on a stool instead of displaying it as a lone wall hanging in aim of practicality. This piece is both aesthetically intriguing and practical in any home, however large or small, eclectic or modern.
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.