The number of artists that responded to our call for Covid-19 portrait submissions was somewhat overwhelming. We are now happy to share our second installment of artists’ work.
Viewers and press have been quick to show their interest in the project. The first installment was featured on CBC radio and in the Globe and Mail.
Artists determined the shape and scope of the project and we received many different interpretations. Not only did we get work from many local and national artists, we also took in a great deal of work from around the world. We shouldn’t have been surprised. Covid-19 is global!
Everyone has their own experience and story to tell. Even after extending the show to three installments we are only able to show a sub-set of the total response.
Below is the second of the three installments. Stay safe, stay healthy, scroll down, and enjoy!
When the city shut down, I was hopeful that things were going to start going again. As time went by, I became more anxious and completely lost motivation to work on any new projects for weeks on end. I realized that I needed to be more aware of self help activities, so I started drawing digital self portraits as a means to keep myself creatively active. These nonsensical and meaninglessly colourful self-portraits mirror the contradicting emotions I feel day-to-day.
Tommy Truong
While self quarantining during this Covid-19 Pandemic, I found my focus on the pandemic blocking my creativity. Suddenly it occurred to me that there was a clear message here. As scientists around the world worked to contain the virus, I would use ART to successfully contain the spread of Covid-19. The materials used include a pastel ground mixed with acrylic paint applied to a 16 x 20 canvas, pastel chalk, pencils, oil pastels, spray fixatives and varnish. Extensive hand washing essential. In deference to the health care workers, no masks or gloves were used although both would-be highly recommended. Happily, once contained in this manner, Covid-19 is rendered harmless.
Von Kuson
Our fears and bad feelings make us to be isolated, in these days of coveed19 ( Corona pandemic) this isolation is more heavier and intensive.
Saeede Mighani
Covid-19 is serious! Daily i watch CNN in disbelief. How does Trump get away with it all? Here Trump as Nero… Taking his pill?
Krys Goldstein
Reigniting Passion the lingering uncertainty and loneliness during this pandemic has a lot of us curled up in despair, we just need to reignite the passion for our day to day chores.
Tae Ess Uxmal
“Artist in Zoom” reflects some directions I have found myself in throughout the lockdown. As a printmaker, I am now largely cut off from using my studio where my presses live and have had to figure out what processes I could do safely in my own home. I started playing with silkscreen monoprint because it satisfied the need to use non-toxic materials, and unsure of when my creativity would return to me, I started using the screen, with great satisfication, to frottage textures within my home, which I now barely leave. As well, I find many of my social interactions replaced with Zoom and other video-based calls: the square format of this exhibition seemed to call to me as a perfect inspiration for a portrait, reflecting on the square in which I now talk to my loved ones. Thus this work showcases myself as drawn from a Zoom window, where one also has the ability to superimpose a fake background. In this spirit, I have filled my own Zoom portrait with the intimate textures of my home, sharing a bit of my space in this unusual new paradigm we now live in.
Maureen Da Silva
Moving hand with latex, still study out of boredom.
Lilianne Schneider
This is a self-portrait of being an Asian female artist, lost full-time job as art teacher, 17 mins late for OCA deadline, stuck at home because of the pandemic, still up get every 7AM and make art.
Kat Hz
My portrait relates to the theme “ Covid-19” portraits because it is a portrait of a gay couple showing how the pandemic has no prejudice and includes all cultures, races, genders, sexual identities, classes etc. It effects all of us. In this photo I tried to illustrate that this particular couple are warriors with their matching masks along with their stance and plan to fight contracting the virus through a cohesive existence as a strong couple
John Hryniuk
I would like to name this work of art Metamorphosis. This portrait expresses the feeling of a young woman during quarantine and how it affects her life. She isolated and feeling of loneliness changes her emotion. Moreover, I create dark holes eyes to show her uncertainty.
BAHAREH SOLTANI
My Shroud will Protect Me. India ink on paper , 2020 At the beginning of the lockdown, I began periodically to don a checkered shawl , which for some reason made me feel safer and somewhat sheltered.
Linda Snowden
Last week, during these special times, I went for a walk in a local park in my German hometown and found this face mask. I had to conserve this scene because I believe that it is a symbol for the current attitude of society. With the lockdown measures being lifted in Germany, people start to believe that the pandemic situation is over. Nevertheless, there is no sign of a vaccine or medication. Keep wearing your masks, it is not over yet!
Jonathan Otrzonsek – Germany
The painting “dreaming abstract” as the title suggests, is a collage of images that appear as an impalpable confused dream, a transposition of vague and distant memories of the past, which become images filtering from the alienated and lost face of the young woman who completely abandons herself to the memory, completely estranging herself from the reality and the world around her.
Jason Balducci
“Covid Self-Portrait” This spring the grackles have invaded our backyard. They are completely oblivious to the pandemic. There would be no better time to be a bird.
Paula Shephard
Portrait of gleeful me banging the Last Day of Radiation Treatments Gong at the Princess Margaret Hospital on May 1st, after going every week day for a month at the height of the pandemic in Toronto.
Elaine Whittaker
This piece was inspired by a friend who has been making masks with her mother and mailing them to friends and family. Upon receiving one myself, she requested a selfie to include in a collage she’s making to share of this event. I decided to take it a step further and make a self-portrait reflecting the reality of the future months… freedom but with caution will be ‘the new norm’.
Stephanie Kervin
I’m full of wondering, fair, sadness, anger, dull, hope, calm , dialectic, patient , stress, … strange mixed feelings… I’m in the blind vision.
Shohreh Edalat
It seemed very fitting to me, if I may briefly refer to the exhibition’s theme, to submit what I would consider a portrait of sorts of our very own public square and the heart of our village; the direct impression of a fissure to evoke the routines that have been disrupted and the social ties that have been broken during this traumatic time in our history.
Rocío Soncini
With Covid-19, life has become a shadow of its former self, confined to lawns and gardens, anxiously watching grass and dandelions grow.
Shannon Donovan
A portrait of a New York City nurse, drawn from a selfie she took moments after a patient died. She is aware of my rendition and likes it, but prefers to remain anonymous.
Kimberley Whitchurch
The portraits are from my Lockdown Performances – series of Livestream performance works that I’ve made during isolation. Short clip of multiple performances https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFGqxmn29zM&t=3s
Ayshia Taskin – UK
These days we are bombarded by Covid-19 news and its worldwide status. Inevitably the virus pressure is everywhere. When we get up in the morning, it’s sitting there staring at us. When we read, pop ups and posts are surrounding us. When we go to bed, it waits for us to wake up again. During this quarantine, I have been trying hard to focus on my tiny position as a human being. Updating self-recognition is the goal. Building the next few years achievements is ideal. However, the frustration and heaviness of the daily tension leave me worried and lost and I find concentration an impossible mission. In this project; of which I am only presenting one shot is portraying myself drowning. Adapting the new normalcy is a huge challenge. Are we ever going to be safe? Are we ever going to feel secured?
Zahra Darvishian
“don’t breath (they are playing nicely)” This image relates to the theme as it is a drawing of a Wednesday morning, a morning my 6 year old son should have been in school learning with his peers. But because of the pandemic he is seen here quietly playing mega blocks with his 2 year old sister.
Charlotte Di Carlo
” Self-Portrait in Isolation” This is a self-portrait reflecting on the feelings of anxiety, depression, and stress that have been present during this pandemic, and the struggle to create art when this whole situation has left me feeling completely drained creatively.
Sarah Leonard
“Freeky” 25x35x30cm mixed media, papiermache mask
Polat CANPOLAT – Turkey
“The Legend Of Amabie” 21x21cm. mixed media on paper
Aslı Canpolat – Turkey
Self Portrait
Mona Bayati
Self Portrait
Jenna Chiddenton
Week 1-8 of Quarantine as a Korean-Canadian living in Montréal: it documents all of my photographs and screenshots I have taken on my phone in a photo reel format from Saturday, March 14th to Saturday, May 9th. This work is a portrait of my quarantine/self-isolation life that takes the form of selfies, homemade food photography, essential outdoor walks, and screenshots to keep record of information or to share with my peers. It is also a record of how much screen time I have used in the 8 weeks – a commentary on how much we rely on technology in this day and age for communication and connection, especially during these turbulent times.
Jeannie K. Kim
HOPING FOR THE BEST Oil and Markers on Recycled Nylon Canvas
Jose Cifuentes
In these times of covid it’s rare to get out. This was a particularly chilly spring day , masked up out with the dogs who were having such needed early morning( no people ) run in the park across the street from where we live.
Churls Mitchell is a bi- polar multi- media artist living and gardening in Toronto
This is a photo of the unkempt moustache I have been growing since being in quarantine.
The lock-down has given me the opportunity to try out different looks I wouldn’t normally try if I had to interact with others.
Ravi Persaud
Confined During the pandemic I left my studio where I paint figurative and abstracts to be at home with my two young children. Confronted with homeschooling and limited time, my response was to cut up my paper studies and recycle my art in new ways (I practice life drawing weekly and so had amounted quite a lot of studies!). And so my sojourn into collage began. This portrait (of an unknown person) is a journey into a new and exciting art direction for me, that would not have happened without being confined.
Holly Edwards
Did you see the first installment? Find it here!