Patience is a Virtue is a series of paintings featuring Hindu figure Ganesh, addressing the various manifestations of Mental Health; breaking the stigma by recognizing that everybody experiences varying degrees of mental health challenges in their lifetime. Does mental health control you? Or do you control it? In order to truly understand and experience the contributing facets of mental health, is it imperative that one has felt or experienced the opposite? Without feeling happiness, can one identify Anger? Without knowing control, can one fully understand Addiction? Without knowing courage, can one actually know Fear? Without knowing calm, can one recognize Anxiety?  The use of Ganesh within the series symbolizes ‘removal of anger, addiction, fear and anxiety’ and being patient with oneself as these seemingly insurmountable obstacles are overcome, as Ganesh is known as being ‘the remover of obstacles’. The Artist–Vicky Vyas–better understood the struggles of mental health and desire for wellness after a recent period of physical and emotional instability that challenged her very own journey to better mental health.

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Vicky Vyas started painting at an early age and continued to develop her craft throughout her schooling. She obtained her BFA in Fine Arts - Visual Arts, specializing in Painting. At that time, she was one of few Canadian-Indian artists painting about the Indian Diaspora. This made her artwork stand out and she began to get recognition for her contributions in art and to the South-Asian community and was presented with an Award of Excellence. Soon after she landed her first solo show in NYC in Soho on Broadway, where she was heralded the “South-Asian Frida Kahlo”; she didn’t know at the time how closely her life would resemble Kahlo’s. In December 2001 just as her career began to take off as an Artist she was hit by an 18-wheeler truck while driving. She lost her memory and mobility for a few months, but through extensive physiotherapy she recovered and could walk again. Following multiple surgeries with cages, plates and rods in her spine she has returned to the canvas after a long painting hiatus. Painting breathes life into Vicky as it is the one thing that takes away her pain.

ig: @vickyvyasart

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Artist Statement

As a Canadian Artist who comes from a South Asian background I began to explore themes of identity, sexuality and traditions, while contrasting East vs. West and Modern vs. Traditional within them at a very early age. After experiencing various traumas in life I began to reflect those personal life themes in my work, as well as those of others. I continue to use symbolism that I know and understand from my cultural background; although religious figures feature in my work it is not meant to be religious, rather a comparison of what is understood through the stories told vs. the experience here in the West. Colour excites me and I am not afraid to be bold with it, as well as using various textures in my painting. As I evolve my work too evolves - it is often a reflection of my life and my experiences in that moment.

THE COMMUTE is a collaborative art installation by Alexandria Sakara McDonough, a low-verbal, audio sensitive autistic, and her mother and caregiver, Jacqueline Valencia. Based conceptually on their daily commutes and the way they both try to navigate the world, both individually and intermingled. This world includes accessibility, traffic, a universe of people, and escapes.

Theme One: The Lamb

Theme Two: The Better Way

Theme Three: Our Cuckoo Cocoon.

Alexandria Sakara McDonough is a Toronto-based visual/digital/sound artist and word mixer. She has exhibited at the Bayside Gallery in Toronto 2021, The Royal Ontario Museum in 2022 and has done collaborations at the inPrint Collective. Her themes include communication as a minimally verbal autistic through popular culture and art from the 90s to the present, particularly music, station bumpers, and children’s public television programming.
sakaramcd.wordpress.com

Jacqueline Valencia is a Toronto-based published author, essayist, and activist who earned her Honours BA in English at the University of Toronto.  Jacqueline is the organizer of the 2015 Toronto Poetry Talks: Racism and Sexism in the Craft. She is a project partner at Poetry inPrint and a founding editor of Critical Focus. Jacqueline is a proud member of the Writers’ Union of Canada.

DJing channel on twitch: twitch.tv/djjacquelineto

Her short films: vimeo.com/user59381072

She is a (bi)racial Latine of Colombian heritage. Her literary themes include (but are not limited to): conceptual experimentation, loss, racism, physical space, feminism, and decolonization.
jacquelinevalencia.ca

Artwork inquiries and prices please contact: ravensee@gmail.com

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Kyle Yip's trans-disciplinary practice integrates eastern and western recovery-based approaches derived from gnosis and neuroscience. It plays with the new fixities of identity politics drawn from the colour-field of pop physics, combining euclidean and sacred geometry with vexillology. Some of these practices include art therapy, dreamwork, as well as meditation, reiki, and esoteric cosmological rituals that unsettle mainstream norms in contemporary art. His work addresses an urgent need in the art industry to merge explorations between personal development and avant-gardist aesthetics.

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Yip achieved a significant breakthrough in 2017 when he discovered the unique ability to conceive and examine artworks that emerge during his dreams in vivid detail. He coterminously reverse-engineered these successive images that once appeared immaterial into tactile, obdurate objects.

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The bands of simple Gestalt forms incorporate an aspect of both the ancient and modern world, and the overall vexillological format of the works also involves how visual attention is augmented through the practice of serial repetition. These works reveal how the unconscious has been branded by advertising formulas redolent of monotonous imagery of the commodity form. The subversive hybrid of these methods metaphorically maps a similarly disruptive kind of complex new identity.

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‍https://www.kyleyip.com

‍@KylePYip

Nests

These nests reflect a time when both the circumstances of the pandemic and a back injury kept me isolated in my apartment almost entirely. This period changed my relationship with my home, as my whole world shrank until it was contained within its walls. The nests symbolize my struggle between my desperate desire to connect and relieve my loneliness with my need to feel safe and avoid pain. Ultimately, I felt both supported and confined by my home

Each nest is a sanctuary that shields something precious from harm, while also shielding it from view, so that the most beautiful aspect remains hidden. Held together entirely by tension, they are objects that are never truly at rest.

Voyages

These paintings are part of a series that examines our desire to be known and the futility of that desire. Our inner world is so vast that it could not be fully shared in a lifetime, making it impossible for us to ever be fully understood, but we still share pieces of ourselves – like sending out messenger birds that may never arrive at their destination.

In these pieces we can see flocks of birds travel across an expanse large enough to contain galaxies; voyagers in search of a distant shore. But I view it as an incredible act of hope that we want to lay ourselves bare and be vulnerable, just for the possibility of connection.

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www.romyblock.com
@romyblockartist

The Downtown Critters project is a street art
initiative taking place in downtown Toronto - at the
moment, primarily along Lakeshore, underneath the
Gardiner.

The concept is to create little bursts of surprise and joy by
posting drawings of some of the local animals / birds /
amphibians - in a word, "critters" - of Southern Ontario,
throughout some of the bleakest stretches of downtown.
We’re thrilled to share a selection of critters here in the
Bayside Gallery for the month of November, and a map of
where you can currently find some critters in-situ.

"Eyes and Teeth" is a collection of my favourite expressions that I've drawn over the course of my career. Although skin tone, hairstyle, nose, and face shape may differ radically, for me eyes and teeth stay the same.

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janinecarringtonbooks.com/eyes-and-teeth

I was always fascinated with time passing by. Things changing never to be repeated. Constant movement. Day, night, sun, water, wind, cold, warm. All of these elements are woven together with every thread.

Good, wrong, sound, silence. A symphony of events, a river of fluxes and influxes, lasting for short flashes. Time is movement. 

This artwork is an attempt to symbolise this thought process. Now, you read it, let’s move onto the next split second. 

- Janusz Bartul

These canvases are a continuation of a theme started in months of lockdown. During the first pandemic winter me and a number of artists in the Artscape Bayside community contributed to a group show centred on the theme of ‘regeneration’. This idea was first hatched in a Zoom meeting and I was immediately taken with it. I forget who came up with it, so apologies and thanks there.  

I hadn’t been painting for months. Normally I access a friend’s studio but going there was out of the question. So I set up a music stand for an easel, broke out all colours and worked appropriately small - acrylic on 18” square panels - right through the Delta variant winter.

In days at a time, but getting up in the morning to riff out in the key of “regeneration” sustained me. And it furthered my practice.

In a studio again, being able to paint to desired scale, I’m much less deliberative and less hesitant. I got used to the speed of working small. Then there are inevitable life issues and a new urgency. These works came fast. I’m also far from finished working through this fire starter theme of “regeneration”.

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@jimtaylor.arts

Visual Art:  

Deborah Torr

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SOM Sound of Movement Artists:

Musician: Michael Menegon

Dancer: Jocelyn Mah

Dancer: Ellen Moore

Musician: Nilan Perera

Visual Art embodies communicative vibrations.  SOM puts the paintings and sculpture of Deborah Torr into sound and movement.  

Live shows every Thursday and Friday in July.  9pm.  (Excluding Friday July 21st)

For full schedule and more info visit:

www.somsoundofmovement.com

The Toronto I know and love is quickly disappearing.  I’m showing five rugs of places that are (or were) important to me.   I have italicized the names of my rugs.  

I like the way Toronto used to be circa 1975.  I moved to Toronto from a small town in Northern Ontario and fell in love with the quiet, tree lined streets of Victorian houses.  I hooked The Yellow Fence to commemorate Toronto’s distinctive bay ‘n’ gable houses.  

My rug, Kensington Market is about how exotic the market seemed to me.  There used to be live chickens and at Easter time, metal tubs of eels swimming about.  I lived on Kensington Avenue in 1974.

I went to the Ontario College of Art which has undergone big changes but there are a few houses across from the Art Gallery of Ontario that are still the same.  The street cars have been going by those houses for a long time. (Across from the AGO)

The El Mocambo is legendary for live music.  I went there as a student.  I didn’t see the Rolling Stones but I wish I had.

As for Honest Eds, it was retail therapy before the term was coined.  I bought SX70 film, Kodachrome film and other necessities like toothpaste, there.  I once lined up for a gallon of white paint for 99 cents.  I am also fond of Toronto streetcars and that strong true red.  

When I hook a rug, I start with a photograph that I have taken myself.  Sometimes it’s a photo I took quite a while ago.  I like to rescue wool from thrift shops.  I de-construct a lot of old garments that otherwise would end up as landfill.  Some wool, I use as is.  Most I over-dye.  Sometimes I buy a piece of new wool that I dye.  The wool is yardage that is cut into strips, rather than yarn.

I like the feel of wool, especially on a cold winter’s day.  It’s warm and fuzzy and comforting.  

If you would like to see more of my work, I have a Facebook page called Trish Johnson Amazing Textile Art.  It’s not just my work but includes the work of other artists that I admire.

You can follow me on Instagram; trshjhnsn (my name without the vowels).  My email is trshjhnsn@gto.net

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I began to play with impressionist photography during the pandemic when it seemed like life had been turned upside down, shaken and blurred. I loved the washes of colour and soft shapes and blurs that using the camera differently could create. It was also nice to forget about rules and being a technician in favour of trying to be a bit of a poet or painter.

I wanted to try to create images that were about something rather than of something.

In the words of the wonderful photographer Minor White, “one should not only photograph things for what they are … but for what else they are.”

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ABOUT THE ARTIST

Ann Fischer is a writer and a photographer focusing on subjects that are soft, unveiled and often tender. Her stories have been included in several anthologies and published in literary magazines, both in print and on line. Her photographs have been published most recently in Burningword Literary Journal and exhibited in various Ontario galleries from time to time.

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Pandemic days were punctuated with walking the neighbourhood, alone or with kids and neighbours. Pandemic nights were spent drawing as if it would help me draw air, as if it would draw me closer to all the things I longed for.My practice and interests revolves around themes of cyclicality, freedom and the land in an urban context. I’ve Missed You brings together much of the digital work I created during that time (as prints) and some more recent originals I’ve been stretching into this Winter. It’s a collection of works that asks: What do we do with all the longing? For the sensation of coming home to our true selves, for the union with loved ones and the Creator and for the truth of what this land was before colonization and what it might one day be.

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Esther Maloney (she/her) is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist, educator and Mama. Esther’s visual art was featured in the Bayside Gallery’s Regeneration exhibit in Spring of 2021. Esther is founding director of Illumine Media, a community-based youth film initiative and the Creative Sovereignty Lab, a mentorship initiative supporting Indigenous filmmakers. Her animated short film Another World(2020), supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, is gaining laurels at international film festivals. Esther's written work includes the children’s bookThe Lovebird’s Freedom (Plant, Love, Grow, 2018), articles published for the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail. Esther's published academic work focused on youth and storytelling is based on her MA research at OISE/University of Toronto. She has presented on a number of panels, including speaking at the United NationsCommission on the Status of Women in 2018. She teaches at the University of Toronto, Humber College, and through large-format programs offered through Carmel Futures. Join her newsletter at www.carmelfutures.com

The February 2023 exhibition featured at Bayside Gallery is an exploration of the woodblocks used in printmaking. The works in this exhibition explore the method and process of working with woodblocks using a range of different methods and processes to play with and highlight the idea of the woodblock as both form and function. “Symbiosis” (black and white print) is a single cut relief print where a woodblock is carved and printed. “Symbiosis II” includes an additive method of using additional woodblocks to form a background landscape. “Carnage of Poms” (colourful triptych) uses a woodblock reduction process where a single block is carved and printed and then the same block is carved and printed again revealing the previous print. The sculptural work “Choice Spinner” incorporates the woodblock as both a printed and sculptural element. The inside drum is a carved woodblock that was once printed for the background prints of “User's Guide to the Choice Spinner.” Through these works, woodblocks are explored as a method of creation and as well as a sculptural product, highlighting the breadth of the artmaking process.

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Jacquelin Heichert is a Toronto based artist specializing in print media, book works and sculpture. Heichert holds a BFA from York University and a MFA from Concordia University. Her exhibition history includes solo exhibitions at Modern Fuel (Kingston), La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse (Montreal, QC), Gales Gallery (Toronto, ON), Latcham Art Centre (Stouffville, ON) and Atelier Circulaire (Montréal, QC). Group exhibitions include Eyelevel Gallery (Halifax, NS), Centre D’Exposition de Val-David (Val-David, QC), Cambridge Galleries (Cambridge, ON), Canadian Sculpture Centre (Toronto, ON), École des beaux-arts (Montreal, QC) and Kyoto International Woodprint Association (Japan). Heichert has attended several national and international artist residencies and received numerous awards including Spark Box Studio Emerging Artist Residency Award (Picton, ON), the Vermont Studio Center Residency (United States) and the Frans Masereel Centrum Printmaking Residency (Belgium) and has received the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Grant for her Master’s Degree research.

Throughout the month of January, 7 local artists will be working inside the Bayside Gallery to create new, site-specific, durational performances, while showcasing their creative process to the public.

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By using a public-facing gallery space, Creative Process seeks to highlight the often invisible process work of performance artists (without the filter of social media) as well as the lack of available, affordable space to create, while also offering an incubating opportunity in a unique setting.

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Final/in progress works will be presented on Sunday January 29th and Monday January 30th, times TBD. (check back here or on our website/socials for updates).

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The exhibit is curated by Kirsten Edwards and Emily Hughes of Hercinia Arts Collective, a non-profit collective creating and curating contemporary circus and multidisciplinary performance since 2009.

www.herciniarts.com

FB/INSTA: @herciniarts

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Jacqueline Valencia (she/they) is a Toronto-based poet, writer, DJ, and film
critic who paints. Her literary and artistic themes include (but are not limited to): conceptual experimentation, grief, motherhood, the body electric in space, and decolonization.

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DJing channel on twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/djjacquelineto
jacquelinevalencia.ca

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Find out more at: jrum.work

Erin McCann

Erin McCann is a multi-hyphenate creative producer and director based out of Hamilton, ON. Erin is known for her film and creative director roles, she has returned to her roots in the fine arts, where she’s exploring the mediums of ink and resin.

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Charles, Malene

Charles, Malene is an interdisciplinary artist & digital designer / developer based out of Toronto, ON. While Charles, Malene has previously  exhibited her video & photography work, this is her first painting installation.

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Find out more at: https://charlesmaleneart.notion.site/charlesmaleneart/Charles-Malene-Erin-McCann-Exhibition-2a7ed55b2694417ba685c29c4ede162d

David J. Fulde likes to think that every piece of media he makes is a self portrait, whether he is actually in it or not. Through his work he loves to show off his own queerness, love of colour, and love of people by allowing them to be their authentic self.

While David is not physically in any of these prints, he hopes that just by seeing these 'self portraits' you get to know him a little - and he's so happy to meet you.

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fulde.ca

We live next to the concrete edge of the soft waves of Lake Ontario. Shaded under rigid umbrellas among the weeping willows. The birds fly by the steel beams of construction. These soft renderings of hard surfaces are dedicated to the urban window gazers and to this neighbourhood, a place of extreme growth and extreme contrast that I am steadily growing to appreciate.  

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Dusk (City Dwellers), 2021
Embroidery on burlap
$600

Sunset (wall view), 2021
Embroidery on burlap
$475

Sugar Beach, 2022
Embroidery on Monk’s cloth
$650

Marooned (apartment view), 2022
Embroidery on Monk’s cloth
$600

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@alears_draingle
aleadrain@gmail.com
www.aleadrain.com

I’m ever conscious of the stream of waste that comes from an active art practice. I like to utilize materials that are at hand, discarded or reusable. The tent in this image was created with fabric and rope left over from some of my grandfather's farm projects. The original image was installed as a massive billboard many years ago just down the street at Harbourfront Centre. When the exhibition ended I salvaged the vinyl, tarp-like print with plans to use it over again.

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Find out more at darrenrigo.com

Art is how I play, create, reinforce and test perception. I am a Bayside community painter engaged with my surroundings. These paintings are explorations of the sights and sounds of my home and I see them as vestiges of the experience.

Lake Opeongo is a combination of two stylistic renders of a small island in Algonquin Park. It is the place of my conception.

Little tikes pop-up experience is a car market for children.

Merchants’ Wharf is a gamification of this street with candy rewards.

Sticky Maple is a convergence of a maple leaf and a muddy day.

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BIO

Michael Freeman Badour (b. 1987)

I received my BFA from OCAD University in 2014. My work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Pumice Raft, Toronto; SIBLING, Toronto; The Loon, Toronto; and Roberta Pelan, Toronto. I have participated in two person and group exhibitions at Little Sister Gallery, Toronto; Topless Rockaway, New York; The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; PUDDLING, Rural Ontario; 304 Albany Ave, Toronto; and CK2 Gallery, New York. I was a finalist in the 2017 RBC Canadian Painting Competition and was the recipient of the 2014 Drawing and Painting award from OCAD University.

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LIST OF WORKS

Lake Opeongo - Oil on canvas - 21” x 30”- 2022

Little tikes pop-up experience - Oil on linen - 42” x 60” - 2021

Merchants’ Wharf - Oil on canvas -  42” x 60” - 2022

Sticky Maple - Oil on linen - 21” x 30”- 2022

Additional supplementary materials, pricing and an NFT auction.

This exhibit honours Queen Nanny, an 18th-century leader of the Jamaican Maroons. She led a community of formerly enslaved Africans called the Windward Maroons. Queen Nanny was born in what is today Ghana of the Ashanti people. The Windward Maroons fought a guerrilla war over many years against British authorities in the Colony of Jamaica. According to Maroon oral history, Nanny's success in defending the people against overwhelming British forces was often attributed to her mysterious supernatural powers. The government of Jamaica declared Queen Nanny a National Hero in 1975 and declared her as their only female national hero celebrating her success as a leader, military tactician and strategist. She was a symbol of unity and strength for the people during times of crisis.

Queen Nanny was known as the wise woman of the village, who passed down legends and encouraged the continuation of customs, music and songs that had been handed down from the people from Africa,  which instilled in them confidence and pride.

It is her determination and strength that has paved the way for the freedom of many Jamaicans. We honour her journey with this exhibit highlighting the space she created for freedom, unity and creative rebellion.

We provide a moment for children and adults to reflect on this BLACK-LIGHT exhibit. We hope that parents will be inspired to discuss the concept of what is yours cannot be taken, stolen, sold or given away. The light within you is always there waiting for you to tap in, to access it and project it into the world. Be the light.

This exhibit uses sacred geometry as a form of storytelling, each holding a specific power and message. For the meaning of each symbol please visit www.evdesign.ca.

In the new age of racial violence this exhibit is a reminder of the power of creative rebellion through the arts and the impact of supporting youth in finding their voice.

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BIO‍

Yvonne Stanley is a Jamaican Canadian Afro Caribbean focused on empowering and supporting her community through art, activism and mindfulness teachings. She is a full-time internationally published photographer based in Toronto. Her professional work varies greatly and can be viewed online at www.evdesign.ca.

Stanley's focus beyond the camera moves to hands-on humanitarian work and activism to support local and international communities. Yvonne works with a collective RTBR (We Have The Right To Be Right), a dedicated group of BIPOC creatives in various fields that volunteer to support communities and individuals in need. Most recently the team supported Syesha Mercado a mother in Florida standing against a corrupt system within the Child Protective Services. The group also worked to support those affected by Hurricane Dorian in the Grand Bahamas and Abaco. The team worked with the Haitian ambassador and supporters in Toronto and Miami to supply aid and hands-on service on the ground.

For more information on RTBR and their history of support visit www.rtbr.ca‍

The team "We have the right to be right" which began from an unfortunate incident in California, turned into a movement. From international award-winning short films, humanitarian aid, community support and creative projects to inspire empowerment, equality and upliftment of the BIPOC community the group actively comes together to make great change.  
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Instagram: @we.want.ev

Website: www.evdesign.ca ‍

Email: info@evdesign.ca

winnietruong.com

Affordable work from the artists of Bayside. With work by Alison Conway, Ann Fischer, Darren Rigo, Jim Taylor, Katharine Asals, Rea Kelly and Yvonne Stanley

I’ve always made art, but only in the last decade have I begun a dedicated painting practice. For years I filled sketchbooks that I carried everywhere with rapid sketches done with an ink brush. These black and white explorations were made without an intention of a larger context. I did these all the time. I still do. Gradually, a visual language emerged that felt true.

I decided to try it on canvas, in colour and on a large scale. At first I worked intuitively. I had no idea where the work would end up. More recently I began embracing themes, and sometimes subjects.

Working with intention felt liberating. (Context and parameters are a creative springboard rather than a limit.)

I never aim for a mood.

Music, the natural world, urgent issues and outrages, global visual culture, beloved painters, and my travel experiences are my strongest influences.

I work in various sizes. These are some of my biggest works to date.

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See more work at

@jimtaylor.arts