Dolores Greco

My artistic practice is infused with my human experience. It is in the doing alone that I am able to explore what is to be. When I enter my work space and face the standing paintings, waiting for the next stroke, it is like entering a baby’s nursery, smelling the new born child, laying my eyes on a beautiful innocent creation and embracing my blessings.

As a child living in a house full of male borders, thundering voices filled the house with discourse, laughter, reminiscing tales of the old country, I was the listener. Entering public school, not knowing the English language, I again became the listener. I worked hard to catch up, however the scars of judgment from peers and teachers mounted and I remained the listener. I did however rejoice when given pencil and paper, even at a young age the comfort of these tools made my life feel more than complete. I entered a wonderful Art Centre at the age of 13; my world was steeped in creativity everyday. Paper, paint, clay, plaster, rulers, and knowledgeable teachers who provided me with the important skills I carry with me today.

I am grateful to be living this life as an artist.

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Carol Gregg

A sense of history and scenery is natural to Carol, owing to her early upbringing in Northern England. Her teens brought fervour to her interest in art. Taking a number of sketch and watercolour courses accentuated her tallents.

Settling into the rolling hills of Mono with her family and intrigued by the beauty of the surrounding Hockley Valley scenery, Carol's artisitc interests have renewed. Several art courses and workshops, including one with Harold Klunder, have helped Carol expand her refreshed talents to include working with acrylics and oils, her now chosen mediums.

Carol's work is fluid and vibrant, reflecting awareness of her beautiful surroundings.

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Kathy Longmore

My art is a process of self discovery, as I express ideas, memories, and dreams. I’m inspired by colours, shapes & textures in my environment, featuring a broad spectrum of life and experiences. From painting in the Andes of Peru, the coast of Nova Scotia to Lake Haliburton, I welcome each creation as I explore with a blend of self and spirit.

I am proud to be a Canadian, which resonates with me from the time I was a young girl growing up in Ottawa. I’m motivated by the vastness of our Canada, and the richness of our environment.

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Jean Mull

Bio details to come.

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Pat Ransom

My activity as a technology worker in the Bay Street financial sector placed me in every high tower structure on the current Toronto skyline. My aerial urbanscapes or ‘god’s eye’ views depict that rarified world. The images I present are my own representations of current reality since I want to experience the city with a different eye. The city is never what it appears to be. In order to create a portrait of a city or to capture the soul of a city like Toronto, it seems necessary to present numerous faces of that space. I am moved to portray the city through my own optic.

This work is a reflection of how my mind works, how I navigate space, how I establish order and direction, and how I make marks. Most of the works in the urban series are oil on stretched canvas. I use oil paints because I delight in the lushness of the medium - the luxurious, buttery texture. I want to physically feel the pulse of the city in the marks, shapes, and the fluid vectors of the expressways and high traffic roads so the brush strokes are aggressive, mimicking the thrust of the transportation network systems and the patterns of the city structures. The textural quality and the quantity of the physical paint also increase in response to the subject and to the abstract aspect of the geometric shapes viewed from above, reflecting the personality and character of the city.

The act of rendering a vital, changing entity such as a city, ultimately becomes a creation of history. My work is a snapshot in time, a portrait of the present, a necessity to the life cycle of the historical narrative. Perhaps, subconsciously, I hope to rescue a small piece of the present for eternity.

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Janet Stanley

Painting for me is about working out questions. It takes me out of my head and allows me to confront the sense of illusion I often feel. Some days the universe seems friendlier than others and things change in a heartbeat. I’m fascinated with the idea that when nothing is certain, anything is possible. When I’m painting, I feel a shift that allows me to work spontaneously. From this space, the work both informs and is informed by the way I experience the world around me.

Lately I’m thinking about barriers and separations – things that protect but also confine. There is an underlying sense of loss and uncertainty. There’s possibility too. More about surrender than about will, it’s largely about getting out of my own way. Images shift as I work away – windows morph into pathways, spaces open up and are lit from within. It’s not always clear which is inside reflecting a deep sense that things are rarely as they appear. I love to play with contrasts of thick and thin that involves layering, scraping and reworking. Struggle is an inevitable part of the process. The resulting layers of textured “history” stand-in for memory and lend a sensuous, sculptural feeling to the work that is very tactile. I love the physicality of oil paint and of painting itself.

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Luella Thomson

This vast land of ours – Canada. I feel privileged to have experienced it from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island and north to the Mackenzie Delta; to have lived in Nova Scotia, Labrador, Quebec, Ontario and spend time with relatives in Alberta and British Columbia. In between East and West I’ve driven across the prairies, imagined the early settlers from Gabrielle Roy’s marvelously descriptive stories.

What does this Canada mean to me?

It’s Newfoundland’s cold wind’s rainy blast at L’Anse aux Meadows to the bright sunny vistas from The Rooms, St. John’s magnificent art gallery and archives; Goose Bay’s heavy snows blocking all one’s view. It means Glooscap’s Blomidon jutting into the rugged, powerful Bay of Fundy; those enchanting villages along Quebec’s north shore; Ontario’s lakes, lakes and more lakes, how many lakes? Prairie land stretching, stretching to Alberta’s mountains; that rich valley of British Columbia, the Okanogan and – at the Pacific’s edge, Vancouver Island’s rain forest. Not to be outdone by any of this is Yukon’s Dawson City, Canada’s show place of magic history.

Geography, history, cities, towns and barren places – all capture dreams and creative spirits.

Our psyche is still rooted in a land of rocks and trees. And here on the crest of Hockley Hills I’m taken by the boulders of the early farmer’s “fence”. These boulders that bear marks of time eternal, of sun, wind and rain, that change but remain, so intriguing in their shapes and colours, so steadfast in themselves.

What do they have to tell me, these markers of time? I’ll explore.

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