Summer Time 2021 June 23 – July 25

Pam Patterson

• ‘Grosse-Île‘
• 39” H x 98” W
• photo-digital print
• 2020

Summer time is the traditional travel time for many. We enthusiastically pack into cars and set out cross-country to national parks and historic sites. Pictured here is Grosse-Île, the summer ship arrival site for Canadian immigrants from 1832 to 1932. Often passengers docked carrying disease and were hospitalized on the island where they died or recovered and then moved onto the mainland. Many facets intersect in this digital image – the dryness and warmth of summer, the island historic site, and the isolation of quarantine. As we enter our second pandemic summer such themes still hover.

Joanne Shenfeld

• ‘Bright Grass I‘
• 14″ x 11″
• Mixed Media on Paper
• ·$125 each, includes frame

These works evoke the warm colors and joy of summer. A new beginning; especially welcome after a long winter in isolation.

• Website: www.joanneshenfeld.weebly.com  
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joanne_shenfeld/

Joanne Shenfeld

• ‘Landscape II‘
• 14″ x 11″
• Mixed Media on Paper
• ·$125 each, includes frame

These works evoke the warm colors and joy of summer. A new beginning; especially welcome after a long winter in isolation.

• Website: www.joanneshenfeld.weebly.com  
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joanne_shenfeld/

Catharine Sommerville

• ‘Algonquin’
• 2021
• Wood

 My Intention is to create a moment. A brief meaningful moment using oil paint and cold wax medium to create abstract work. Nature during the pandemic seems to be more beautiful, finite and alive, similar to a burst of light from a candle before the flame is extinguished.

Catharine Sommerville

• ‘Red Fork’
• 2021
• 22” x 29”
• oil on board

From microbes to whales, every life is connected in a complex and fragile network. There seem to be endless discoveries about my life and my relationship with the natural world. Painting is the way I express my angst, appreciation and love.

Elizabeth Greisman

• ‘Summertime Kisses’
• 36″x36″
• oil on canvas
• 2020
• $2,000.00

I work in an organic manner, starting from perceptual sketches of nature to tap into the transcendent beauty of the landscape. I paint in minutiae and in vast expanse, notating nature in reference to climactic change. Artworks reach for the concept of “thin places”, a term meaning a space on earth where the distance between the world as we know it and the supernatural world are poised to merge. Working rapidly and directly from nature to capture the fleeting light and weather, small sketches are done using water-based oils on canvas. These sketches become the foundation for large works on unstretched canvas and mylar that are completed in the studio. No power tools or toxic materials or solvents.

Mary Perkins

• ‘Summer Scents’
• 12” x 12”
• oil on canvas

The pandemic has only solidified my belief that our urban green spaces hold immense soothing, healing and restorative powers. Despite our protracted lockdown, we are still able to enjoy and find peace and natural rhythms in the spaces of nature, breathe in its scents, listen to urban wildlife abound and find and beauty and connectivity in the simple things that surround us: the sky, trees, grasses, earth and stone. Nature is one of our primary elements that cannot be restricted and it needs to be valued and protected. My oil paintings reflect the beauty, joy, serenity and natural progressions that I find in nature in both urban and rural green spaces in Canada, in different seasons, at different times of the day and night, and in many varieties of flora. Nature, to me, is always a source of inspiration, relaxation and rejuvenation.

• maryperkinspaintings.com
• https://www.instagram.com/maryperkinspaintings/

Chris Harms

• ‘Ariane 4’
• 24”x 9”
• stained glass set in wood

In 2016 after witnessing a rocket launch in French Guiana, I was determined to capture that feeling of awe and wonder in my art practice.

Chris Harms

• ‘Flying Saucer’
• 11” round
• stained glass set in wood

Soon after, I turned my attention to stained glass and took an introductory glass painting/firing class, wanting to take a traditional art medium and mix it with modern stories of space exploration. Using age old techniques, while breaking a few rules and traditions, I can experiment with depth, layers and texture in this beautiful medium.

Gerda R Wekerle

• ‘Ferry Ride from the Island’

These paintings represent two of my passions: growing and observing North American native plants; and discovering nature in and alongside the city. The Alderville Reserve, east of Toronto, has prioritized restoring native grasslands and educating urban dwellers about their importance. Similarly, the ferry ride from Toronto’s waterfront to the Toronto Islands takes us away from the city centre while keeping it in view. This back and forth between city and nature is a constant focus of art.

Angela Zheng

• ‘Violet petals’

• Education:
  • PhD in Economics, 2020, New York University
  • Currently studying photography with Beowulf Sheehan.
• Publications:
  • 2020: Existere magazine, Blank Spaces magazine, Pace magazine, Carte Blanche magazine
  • Forthcoming : Color Tag magazine, Hamilton Arts & Letters magazine.

https://angelazh25.wixsite.com/photos

Angela Zheng

• ‘Blur of Red’

• Exhibitions :
  • 2021: Blue Door Art Center (Colors of Spring), Maritime Garage Gallery (Bloom).
  • Forthcoming: Mini Museum (Philadelphia), Vintage Coffee (Hamilton), Art House Café (Ottawa).

https://angelazh25.wixsite.com/photos

Mikael Sandblom

• ‘Birds at Dusk’
• Digital Composite – Edition of five
• Size and framing can be customized
• 2021

Imagine great heights with no fear of falling.
Imagine the dark ocean can’t pull you down.
I stand here. Only my eyes can follow you.

• Website
• Instagram
• Newsletter Sign–up

Mikael Sandblom

• ‘Breakwater’
• Digital Composite – Edition of five
• Size and framing can be customized
• 2021

Everything’s in motion – constantly changing. Follow one wave, follow one cloud. Look again and you’ve lost your visual grip. No point in trying to hang on – go with the flow!

• Website
• Instagram
• Newsletter Sign–up

Tariq Saeed

• ‘The Merciful’
• 2021
• Connection Earth Collaborative (Tariq Saeed)
• Enamel/ House Paints
• 21” x 22”

Inspiration for this work came from multiple sources, mainly De Stijl art movement, Circularism and of course, Cubism. The Arabic font  I selected is called Square Kufic, as it would go with the square canvas as well as Cubist style of art. The verse I chose is a prayer that every Muslim says everyday multiple times. It translates to ““In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate”

Rae White

• ‘Inhabitation’
• 2021
• 12×9”
• pastel on paper

I have always been fascinated with drawing bodies. They express and contort in such unique and individual ways, as much informed by their physicality as by the individual mind possessing them. I don’t think that anyone has an easy relationship with their body; I certainly don’t. It’s something I inhabit wholly but often objectify; because of chronic pain, because it feels like it is working against me, because it is finite where my mind would wish otherwise. I am caught between the performance of my self and the visceral experience of being my body. The smudgy, messy melange of pastels describing the forms of friends and models helps me to explore the ways our bodies and our identities are made up of the people who came before us, the connections and joys and traumas we have experienced, and how seeing them through the lens of those around us makes them something else, something mythic and amalgamated. By re-presenting other people in, and as, their bodies I can try to come to terms with my relationship to my own.

• https://raewhiteart0.webnode.com/

Jacqueline Treloar

• ‘TTC 76A bus driver with his skeleton mask’
• 38 x 36 inches framed
• acrylic paint on fabric
• 2021

I am a magician. My work springs from ancient histories and legends, stunning light and colour. Its origins were formed from years living in England, Italy and now Canada. I ask questions of what holds meaning for me? What is my purpose?  My answers celebrate a personal vision; ideas, images and memories are sorted, researched, and stored over time and then put forward out of a desire to commemorate and honour that which is of profound personal value. Much  searching takes place within the archives of manuscripts, monuments, and great natural spaces, exposing the inner power and beauty that in turn forms the nucleus of a contemporary creation.

Kristen Stephen

• ‘Future Daydreams’
• 30 x 40 inches
• 2021
• Inks, Acrylics and Glitter on Canvas

Kristen’s artistic focus is abstract painting. She believes in responding intuitively to the materials she works with to create work that represents what she finds beautiful. Kristen creates art intended to be a reprieve from the negativity in society, transporting viewers to a place of ease through colour planes of glitter and softness. Her work is achieved through dying the canvas in inks and then stretching it. She finishes the work with acrylics, inks and glitter.

Gwen Tooth

• ‘Rhythms of the Sea Scape No 17’
• Acrylic
• 24 x 36 in
• $800

I am an experimental expressionist painter. I have completed several series of acrylic paintings revealing the moods and energies of water – whirlpools, waterfalls, and tsunamis and recently, White Water Rapids. For this summer exhibition, I am exhibiting painting(s) that bring me happiness and renewed joy.

• www.zhibit.org/gwentooth

Gwen Tooth

• ‘Rock n Roll’
• Acrylic
• 24 x 24 in
• $900

 I am a member of Propeller, Gallery 1313, and I am an Associate member of the Society of Canadian Artists. I hold a B.A. from Western University, a BFA (Honours) 2005 from Ontario College of Art and Design University and a Fine Arts Certificate (Honours) from Humber College.

• www.zhibit.org/gwentooth

Jeanie Lui

• ‘As Above, so Below’
• 24” x 30”
• Acrylic paint and gel medium. Stretched canvas 0.75” depth

Within a two-dimensional picture frame, I lay down my thoughts, merging time and eternality. As I am working through the cognitive and painting process, I encounter the spirits of hope. Confidence and passion replace the misery and hopelessness. My work of art depicts light pushing through the darkness and nature confronting the human beings. Art and life do not separate and color describes my mood swing.

I accepted The Wings as my symbol and explore what it’s meaning for my life adventure.

Megan Cole

• ‘Persephone Dreaming‘
• 2020
• Glazed Porcelain Bust
• W10” L10” H12”
• $1500

Megan Cole

• ‘Walking in Orkney‘
• 2020
• Glazed Porcelain Tile
• 5” x 4”
• NFS

Emma  Klasse – Brule 

• “Summer nights”
• 9 x12
• acrylic on wooden panel

My name is emma kb and i am an emerging artist currently enrolled at ocad university, for drawing and painting. I started my practice in 2012 after dropping out of university, and my artist practice and continued throughout facing various mental health challenges. Mental health or wellness plays a large aspect in my life as well as my artistic practice.

Emma  Klasse – Brule 

• ‘Fuzzy bikini’
• 20×25
• fake fur and paint on paper

The work that I included is my take on summer and a unique way on how I view the world at large. The images that are included encompass the theme of summer in its use of texture, colour, and subject matter. I feel that they are the most accurate depiction of this sensibility during these trying times.

Art Cotrim

• ‘Lisbon tram’
• 12″x36″
• acrylic on canvas

Art Cotrim

• ‘Lagos beach rider‘
• 18″x24″
• acrylic on canvas

Prometheus Blackthorn

• ‘Blending In‘
• 2021
• Mixed media on canvas
• 9 x 12 in.
• $400

I facetiously refer to my work as “Pop Art Depressionism,” mixing paint, pain, and pills to explore, challenge, and critique issues within the wellness industry. My work is a reflection on the struggle to achieve personal harmony in a culture obsessed with the pursuit of perfection.

• Website: www.miserywithoutborders.com
• Instagram: @prometheusblackthorn

Prometheus Blackthorn

• ‘The Purest Blue‘
• 2021
• Mixed media on canvas
• 12 x 12 in.
• $250

I facetiously refer to my work as “Pop Art Depressionism,” mixing paint, pain, and pills to explore, challenge, and critique issues within the wellness industry. My work is a reflection on the struggle to achieve personal harmony in a culture obsessed with the pursuit of perfection.

• Website: www.miserywithoutborders.com
• Instagram: @prometheusblackthorn

Mirren Hinshley

• ‘Aerial View 2’
• 2021
• 30 x 40 inches
• Abstract, acrylic paint on canvas, high gloss finish
• $1,200

I am an emerging, abstract painter. After I retired from the corporate world, I wanted to do something different, to reinvent myself. 4 years ago, I took up acrylic painting and I have never looked back. My paintings reflect my love for bright, bold colors. I use a variety of painting techniques to make my works dynamic. My style and technique vary with each painting. The bolder they are the better! I want my paintings to be unique, to make a statement, to draw and hold the viewers’ attention and provoke discussion.

• Website –  https://mirrenhinchleyart.com
• Instagram – https://www.instagram.com//artbymirren

William Tyler

• ‘Walking the Beat (Cop)’
• 24×36
• Acrylic, Oil stick, Pencil, Crayon, Xerox and Wheat paste
• BILL_L47 2020
• $2,100.00

Larissa Mattwich 

• ‘Allotment #11’
• Oil on Paper
• 12”x 12”

The URBAN GARDENS series depicts small green spaces in our vast and engulfing urban sprawl. The pandemic has limited travel, social gatherings and other entertainment. City dwellers have consequently developed newfound appreciation for green spaces close to home.

Larissa Mattwich 

• ‘Allotment #12’
• Oil on Paper
• 12”x 12”

URBAN GARDENS documents this rediscovery of green spaces within the city. The first crocuses peeking through, seeds growing into a jungle of vegetables, and even a blanket of snow putting the garden to sleep, all serve as inspiration.

Jennifer Humphries 

• ‘Blue Shark’
• $800

Combining an Old Master’s insistence on precise drawing and tonal values with a contemporary approach to experimental materials and tools, I tend to focus on creating powerful contrasts congruent with my particular themes of interest. British figurative painter Justin Mortimer has been my main source of inspiration since 2012, as well as Velazquez and the iconic films of Stanley Kubrick in previous years. My material and technique process sometimes includes scratching into the canvas with scalpels, metal scrapers and/or dental instruments and repeatedly destroying/rebuilding an image using spray-paint, squeegees, solvents and numerous repaintings. Colour experimentation, including use of a limited palette, acidic colours or unusually expensive pigments on special priming, is often a part of my mandate. By painting dramatic subjects in imaginative colours in differing ratios of a traditional/contemporary approach, I seek a personalized artistic recipe for creating my own visual language in an attempt to equal the intensity at the core of my artistic voice.

Nietzsche’s writing style has always been central to the ideas behind the imagery I find most exciting. His celebration of the will to power and self overcoming, his acknowledgement of the isolation of the outsider and his uncompromising honesty and reverence for truth, however ugly, strange or unpopular, have always been recurring themes in my work.

• https://www.instagram.com/evilgenius6/

Ewa Stryjnik

• ‘CÔTE-NORD 17 (Baie-Johan Beetz)‘
• oil on canvas
• 40” x 60”
• 2021

“Côte-Nord”, series of paintings based on my road trip to Kégaska, Côte-Nord-du-Golfe-du Saint-Laurent, Quebec in 2019. Travelling along Côte-Nord to Kégaska at the end of the Route 138. Contemplating the distant shoreline across the deep blue watery gap. Labrador is close but unreachable. Revelling in the beauty of the untamed wilderness, the transcendental threshold of being in the moment while suspended in timeless space, of reality and abstraction, of the cerebral and the spiritual. Starting with photos, the paintings transit into an intuitive process of layering colour combinations, impasto, glazes and printmaking in order to convey the spirit of the place.

Raha-Fard

• Solitude 2
• 30” x 36”
• Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

We are connected; we are connected to each other through identity, through the land, through our humanity. I feel when you are suffering in the farthest part of the world, I feel the pain in your body, and I feel sorrow in your heart. No matter what we are doing, and in what position we are, we go into our solitude, our anxiety and our sorrow, with the news about people who are in unbearable circumstances in other parts of the world.

The submitted work is from a series of painting, done with acrylic and oil on canvas, depicting a lonely female figure in different positions in her solitude. The patterns in this series of paintings are inspired by Persian carpets, and traditional Persian motifs.

Marie Finkelstein

• ‘Barbara’s Magic Garden 15‘
• 8 x 10 in.
• oil on canvas
• 2021
• $200

This second summer of Covid, I have found freedom and peace of mind painting, en plein air, in my friend Barbara’s beautiful garden. It is an oasis in the city, an escape and respite from the pressures and restrictions of these difficult times.

Marie Finkelstein

• ‘Barbara’s Magic Garden 17‘
• 8 x 10 in.
• oil on canvas
• 2021
• $200

This second summer of Covid, I have found freedom and peace of mind painting, en plein air, in my friend Barbara’s beautiful garden. It is an oasis in the city, an escape and respite from the pressures and restrictions of these difficult times.

Stanislav  Placic

• ‘I Sing About Freedom’
• 14″ x 30″
• acrylic on canvas.

Speaking in Haida is a collection of works that relate to study of Canadian indigenous cultures and spirituality. The works are fully or partially abstract in nature and are a combination of various techniques and influences.

Nicola Palmieri Infantino

• ‘March‘
• 2021
• Oil and acrylic paint on stretched canvas
• 24”x 30”

Drawings and oil paint on canvas, reflect memories of my life at home and of my past travels. Driven by my interest to form narratives, I create work in series depicting commonplace objects suggestive of people’s habits. Other paintings, place importance on locations and their modest urban architecture which feed my fixation in the ordinary.

• Instagram: @nicolainfantino.art
• Website: https://nicolainfantino.format.com/

Madeleine Greenwald 

• ‘Follow the clouds’
• 24” x 36”
• Acrylic on canvas

Madeleine Greenwald 

• ‘Into the Surf’
• 18” x 24”
• Acrylic on canvas

Connection Earth Collaborative (Farzaneh Moallef)

• ‘Sabrina Mont Royal, Montreal’
• 2020
• 44” by 31.4”
• Colour Digital Photography

My memories of Summer have been intricately connected to expressions of nature in full exuberance: the many shades of green, the subtle dance of shadows and rays of light, a soft breeze through the branches rustling the leaves, carrying the intoxicating scent of roses and summer jasmines in full bloom, the range of blues reflecting on the water, the blue skies, and songbirds in flight.

Connection Earth Collaborative (Farzaneh Moallef)

• ‘Roses, Music Garden, Toronto’
• 2021
• 44” by 31.4”
• Colour Digital Photography

My memories of Summer have been intricately connected to expressions of nature in full exuberance: the many shades of green, the subtle dance of shadows and rays of light, a soft breeze through the branches rustling the leaves, carrying the intoxicating scent of roses and summer jasmines in full bloom, the range of blues reflecting on the water, the blue skies, and songbirds in flight.

Joseph Kennel

• ‘High Park‘
• 11×14
• Silver Halide Print

As Covid shapes and continues to dictate our relationship to space, access to green spaces in particular have become an escape for many. With the arrival of summer these places represent so much more to us, they become places of social, physical and mental release. Yet the way this flourishing of community and nature reaching its seasonal apex shape each other is overlooked. Nowhere is this relationship more apparent in our city than in Toronto’s high park.

Joseph Kennel

• ‘High Park‘
• 11×14
• Silver Halide Print

These images were produced to visualize how humans and the traces we leave are interacting with the park’s preserved ecologies producing new geographies that have become grounding spaces for many of us during the pandemic. These images also work to complicate how we are interacting with these spaces passing through them in many ways leaving our mark on them. Through capturing different characters and their interactions whether human or natural we can begin to understand the importance of natural and historical preservation in continued urbanization, but also the inherent complexity of this relationship.

Kelly O’Neill

• ‘Tales of the Forgotten Child‘
• January 2021
• charcoal, pastel, gesso, ink, graphite paper onboard
• 122 x 92cm/ 48” x 36” 

Kelly O’Neill is an installation, multimedia and textile artist who lives in Selwyn, ON. Working with assemblage and text, video and projection, and incorporating traditional textile methods with unconventional materials, O’Neill creates objects and experiences that explore the fluidity and impermeability of embodied experience. 

Kelly O’Neill

• ‘Tales of the Forgotten Child/Survival instinct‘
• January 2021
• charcoal, pastel, gesso, ink, graphite paper onboard
• 122 x 92cm/ 48” x 36” 

Kelly O’Neill is an installation, multimedia and textile artist wO’Neill works with objects and materials that relate to the materiality of our physical beings. Often beginning from a personal experience, she searches for an image, substance or object that moves beyond the personal to the collective. O’Neill creates work that dissolves the border between viewer and object and places the viewer within the experience of the moment.