Last updated: December 9, 2024
Michael Garron Hospital (MGH) is excited to unveil new pieces of art by local artists across the hospital.
For this initiative, the hospital aimed to engage its wider community, including patients, staff, physicians, volunteers, donors and East Toronto residents.
In November 2021, the hospital received nearly 400 call-to-artist submissions from individuals who were interested in having their art displayed in the Thomson Centre.
In June 2022, MGH published a survey to get community feedback on the themes and styles they would like included in this initiative. More than 1,500 people responded to the survey, including MGH staff, physicians, patients, volunteers, donors and East Toronto residents.
MGH’s Art Committee, which is comprised of staff, physicians and community members, made the final selections. Their decision was based on our survey results and additional factors, such as artwork size, theme and style.
Read more about the art selection process and community engagement.
SLIPPING GLIMPSES: – AMANDA CLYNE
Long before Amanda became an artist, she was a dedicated viewer, looking at art to see and feel beyond her own body. Viewing a piece of art felt like entering an alternative body that expressed something not otherwise accessible in her own skin. Now as an artist, each painting she makes is a fantasy of a new kind of body, reflecting on the fragile nature of seeing and of being seen.
Her work Slipping Glimpses is a body stitched together from fragments. After spray-painting a large canvas, Amanda was struck by the special moments she saw getting lost in the chaos. Cropping them out to ensure their visibility, Amanda configured a patchwork of paintings, where the frames of thread elevate each slipping glimpse as a little painting that can be savored on its own.
GREEKTOWN ALIVE: – DINA BELAIA
Dina Belaia is a professional artist living in East End Toronto. Since Greektown is her neighbourhood and MGH her hospital, some of her artworks (including “Greektown Alive”) are suffused with local imagery.
Remarkably, the genesis of “Greektown Alive” is a City of Toronto mural Dina completed on a traffic light box at the iconic corner of Danforth and Pape – the heart of Greektown! She received such overwhelmingly positive feedback for this particular project, that the idea for her MGH submission was almost a forgone conclusion.
“Greektown Alive” portrays recognizable local architecture and as living, soulful faces. Faces and buildings interact with each other and with residents of all stripes – humans, pets, birds and of course our alpha local fauna, raccoons. Dina’s painting is a loving depiction of her neighbourhood – anthropomorphized, caricatured, embellished and even idealized – a beautiful picture of a beautiful place.
RANCHDALE PARK RINK; FAIRMOUNT RINK SHADOWS: – TOBI ASMOUCHA
Tobi Asmoucha is a photographer based in East York, exploring themes of community and the rituals that bind them. This work is held in collections at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, the Jewish Museum Berlin, and the Canadian War Museum. She has been recognized with a Gold National Magazine Award, along with Julia Margaret Cameron Awards in the Human Rights and Street Photography categories. Currently, Asmoucha teaches and leads workshops at various institutions, such as Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography and Centennial College. Asmoucha’s photography that is part of the collection of art at Michael Garron Hospital is from her natural ice series taken primarily in the east end of Toronto. Her attraction to natural rinks stems from the fleeting nature of these neighbourhood forums, which are places without structured schedules. These documents of moments on ice explore the connections that reflect the character of the neighbourhood.
DYNAMIC FLOW: – ANDREW YANG
Andrew Wang, a Toronto-based mixed-media artist, shifted from engineering to art in 2017. His work, influenced by his experience as a second-generation Canadian, explores themes of identity and belonging through intricate origami assemblages. "I fold thousands of origami forms to honour the hardships and sacrifices made by my parents’ generation. Always striving for perfection, taking joy in the completion of each small task, the culmination of thousands of motions to create something greater than the sum of its parts." His work, Dynamic Flow, features over 1,000 origami cranes and is a tribute of wellness to the patients of Michael Garron Hospital.
Flow is not perfectly laminar. Turbulent eddies form around obstacles or impediments while the inertia of motion never stops. The eddies continually form and dissipate, interacting and affected by each other, their ethereal existence momentary but ever renewing.
DIVERSITY: EAST END BUILDING BLOCKS: – ILIANA SERGEEV
East End Building Blocks is a piece with a light tone and modern simplicity, yet rooted in history.
The work consists of a historical map of Toronto’s east end neighbourhood, with colourful toy blocks representing the ever-changing fabric of Toronto, in the transformational period of early 20th century. The blocks represent the buildings already in place at the time of map creation and the plan also shows the extend of city planning to continue the area’s pre-war development.
I am the founder of an award winning multi-disciplinary design studio as well as an artist and a public speaker. As a mother, I wanted a piece to add a friendly and playful vibe to the hospital for children to see familiar objects, elevating any anxieties they might have being there. Yet, this piece also gives adults a reason to ponder on and learn something about the neighbourhood’s evolution.
HOMAGE TO VENTURA LIRIOS: – JULIE GLADSTONE
Julie Gladstone is a Toronto-based interdisciplinary artist and abstract painter. She holds an MFA from OCADU and a BFA from Concordia University. She is the recipient of multiple grants and award and has exhibited and been collected internationally. Her painting Hommage to Ventura Lirios is an aerial view painting of her ancestral village of Béjar, Spain; a small medieval village surrounded by a fortress. The work explores themes around reconnecting to her roots and healing intergenerational trauma. Through gesture, mark making, layering and colour, this painting demonstrates the often elusive and non-linear path of reclaiming and connecting to lost ancestral histories.
MOMENT IN TIME: – JOE RICH
Joe Rich is a Toronto-based landscape artist primarily working in acrylic on canvas and wood. Joe’s work is known for his bold use of shape and colour to interpret nature.
This piece, titled A Moment In Time, is a painting designed to engage the viewer in the transitions in nature from land to water to wind to rock. The eye – like the artist in nature – can explore the surroundings both in general and in detail to arrive at a moment in time well worth appreciating. A moment we call Now.
PINK PURPLE BLUE GREEN: – PETER OWUSU-ANSAH
Ghanaian-born, based in Toronto, Peter Owusu-Ansah is a Deaf visual artist. Pink Purple Blue Green is one of his best results. Peter used Photoshop to produce more than 2,000 different ways to observe and capture his sense of joy in the style of works. He uses his creation to promote the existence of Deaf and Disabled artists that are excluded in the art world.
FILÉE # 044: – MARTINE CÔTÉ
Through her photography, Martine Côté seeks to capture the quiet beauty and essence of places. Her work delves into the emotional tapestry woven by memory. Filée # 044 evokes the ever-changing interaction of water and the horizon, emphasizing the dynamic nature of the elements.
BLOSSOM I; OUT OF THIS WORLD; BLOSSOM II – SOBO ARTZ
Award-winning artist Sobo has always been drawn to the arts. Her inspirations are dynamic colours, nature and music. She has credits as a songwriter on hit T.V. shows worldwide (“America’s Next Top Model“, “Hit The Floor” (BET), “NUMB3RS” (CBS), etc.) while continuing to explore her passion for painting. With a principle focus on abstract, Sobo seems to consistently capture the essence of the human condition in her works. She incorporates the tropical hues of her childhood, bringing an effervescent, yet visceral feeling to the viewer. With a style that varies from the layering of colour to vibrant palette knife painting, she continues to grow in style and confidence with each new work.
The artworks included in the MGH collection illustrate a rhythmic floral fiesta amidst whimsical luscious colouring to brighten and inspire cheer in the space.
RISES-1; RISES-2 – MEAGHAN HICKIE
Meaghan Hyckie (b. 1983, Toronto) fuses aesthetics from video games, textiles and op-art into prints and drawings of familiar atmospheric and structural imagery, sites of emotional and bodily projection that devolve into shapes, colours and patterns.
In RISES-1 & RISES-2 layers of ink are layered together in sections that have been mirrored to create two unique screenprints. These delicately tactile, optically vibrating images animate the spaces between and within the same suburban landscape filled with house icons based on Hyckie’s childhood home in East York.
Based in Toronto, Hyckie’s work has been exhibited across Canada and is part of the collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Museum London, Bank of Montreal and Royal Bank of Canada.
Her monumental public artwork Elevations can be seen at Great Canadian Casino Resort Toronto. She is represented by Olga Korper Gallery.
WadE In – Alanna Peters
Alanna Peters is a painter and educator. Her paintings are found in private and public collections.
Alanna’s paintings explore the interaction between the abstract qualities of the environment and the detailed realism of the figure. She is inspired by the idea of impermanence both in the moment and in our lives. Alanna uses oil paint on wood panels to capture her emotions and experiences. There is a focus on light and movement and how they distort and interact with the human body.
Wade In is one in a series of works called Awakening Resilience. The series was inspired by a friend of the artist, and her courageous fight with metastatic breast cancer; she is also the model for the paintings. The series was designed around the words: strength, beauty, resilience, courage, fragility, kindness, love and perseverance.
Birds of a feather – Alejandra Phillion
Alejandra Phillion is a local photographer in the Beaches. She took this picture early one morning watching the sunrise. She watched as two geese flew away together, observing the beauty in how they glided above the water – not alone but together.
Exo leg covers – Alexander Toufexis
Alexander Toufexis of Exo Design Lab has always had a passion for design and manufacturing. In 2017, he enrolled in the Prosthetic and Orthotics program at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre via George Brown College.
While learning to fabricate sockets, shape foam covers and align leg componentry, he realized that he could use the skills he gained to create a better and more aesthetic product for prosthetic leg users.
The result: Exo Leg Covers. These prosthesis covers can be easily interchanged and customized with many colour combinations and designs – including this one, inspired by Greektown.
The covers provide protection for prosthetic leg components and the wearer’s clothing, but most important is how they provide a natural leg shape while offering a freedom of expression – something quite unique in the field of Prosthetics – ultimately changing the conversation and celebrating our differences.
Whimsical Forest – Anna Narday
Anna Narday has been exhibiting her paintings for close to 25 years, working almost exclusively in acrylics, although not limiting herself to canvas while working with this medium.
At times she has incorporated furniture, glass, sand and wood into her work to add depth, texture and form. Stylistically, her work is expressionism and abstract expressionism, having been greatly influenced by Kandinsky, Malevich, Rothko and Pollock, along with the great Canadian painters Emily Carr and Lauren Harris.
In recent years, she works full-time as Creative Director in the Visual Services department of a hospital. She has also written and illustrated a series of 12 children’s books, Clay and Katie, and continues to experiment with painting styles and subjects.
Whimsical Forest was inspired from feelings of lightheartedness and peace – letting your imagination take you to a place of magic and mystique.
Reflection – astra nams
Astra Nams paints fast, large-scale plein air paintings capturing the Canadian Shield in blazing colors, finding a place between abstraction and literal representation.
Her works are giant postcards of travels through Ontario and Quebec. She has won numerous landscape and plein air awards and the pieces can be found in both corporate and private collections.
Niska – Audrey Chilton
Audrey Chilton is a citizen of the Moose Cree First Nation from Moose Factory, Ontario. She started stained glass over 15 years ago as a hobby, but her work attracted attention, and she now creates custom orders.
Audrey has been married to her husband Patrick for 50 years and is the proud mother of 5 sons and grandmother of 9 grandchildren.
Sunflowers – Carolyn Gavin
Carolyn Gavin is a painter and designer currently living in the east end of Toronto. She is inspired by travel and how the landscape presents itself to her. She reimagines it with colour, texture and brushstroke, using mixed media with acrylic and watercolour.
Carolyn uses contrast in a non-traditional way and eschews straight lines in favour of organic shapes. Winter becomes an endless summer moving fluidly, capturing a moment in nature and making it something else.
Carolyn’s landscapes are constantly evolving like life itself. Her main hope is for people to feel happy upon seeing the work, providing a moment of escape and joy.
Inukshuk – Cat Marchese
Cat Marchese is an award-winning photographer, ardent creative and drummer with a passion for reigniting history. She's always been fascinated with forsaken institutions and deserted cities.
The structural remains of these once elaborate and peopled places – their ghostly bones – are as intriguing to Cat as their shed historical skin. Her unique artistic aggregation named Citybonez™ pays photographic homage to our stately skeleton: historical building blocks and bricks manufactured by brickyards dating back to 1889, offering a glimpse into our collective architecture.
Cat's images preserve relics from John Price Brick Maker on Greenwood Avenue, the Milton Pressed Brick Company in Milton and the Don Valley Brick Works.
Her piece titled Inukshuk, made with historical bricks found along the shorelines of Lake Ontario, was created to show respect and pay homage to the Inummariit – the Inuit who know how to survive on the land, living in their traditional way.
Beacon of Hope 2020 – Christine Luna
Christine Luna studied fine arts at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design and printmaking at Malaspina Printmakers in Vancouver, B.C. Returning to her hometown of Toronto, she continued to explore painting as a member of the Don Valley Art Club.
Christine created this piece using individually painted microscope lab slides, applied to canvas. Each slide represents a pyramid of individuals who were tested for COVID-19 during the early months of 2020. The upward reaching structure reflects on the profusion of lights shining around the city at all times during the stay-at-home winter of the pandemic.
The colours are representative of emotions and ideas. Blue symbolizes depression, the human psyche and represents profound insight and spiritual realization, which may come from seclusion. Yellow counteracts, symbolizing optimism and the promise of a positive future. Gold symbolizes victory, success and hope. The purple sky signifies a harmonious balance of awareness and peace that will come.
Flinch – Christine Walker
Christine Walker is a painter and arts educator who currently lives in East Toronto. She is very passionate about quality arts education. She has her Bachelor of Fine Art, Master of Fine Art and Bachelor of Education degrees with a focus on visual arts.
Christine is experienced in oil, acrylic, encaustic and watercolour painting and enjoys creating in all forms. Her current paintings combine watercolour and acrylic painting and sometimes photographic collage, with an emphasis on birds often seen in East Toronto.
Flinch is an interpretation of how migratory songbirds might experience the world. It illustrates the balance between the natural and urban environments. The artwork aims to simulate the narrow central field of binocular vision, and larger field of monocular vision that songbirds use to navigate our city. The bright, vibrant colours allude to the ability of birds to see ultraviolet light, which humans cannot access.
AmaLou – Corynn Kokolakis
Corynn Kokolakis is a figurative oil painter whose practice merges the often disparate roles of mother and artist. Influenced by motion and materiality, her artworks explore memory, childhood development and the labour of caregiving.
She is pursuing an Master of Fine Art in visual arts at York University and holds a Bachelor of Arts in drawing and painting from the Ontario College of Art and Design University, where she was awarded the Akin, Partial and JumpStart Career Launchers. Recent accolades include the Glay Sperling Prize and a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canadian Graduate Master's Scholarship.
AmaLou touches on the transitionary spaces where caregiver and child are neither together nor apart, resulting in a sensitive rendering of growing autonomy. This careful gaze anchors a fleeting moment firmly in paint, giving weight to emotion and memory.
Magic Place – Dana M. Sewell
Dana M. Sewell is a multidisciplinary visual artist, multimedia designer and art facilitator. Art is her life-long passion and part of a never-ending journey into exploring, experimenting and discovering.
Dana’s fascination with vivid, vibrant and highly intense colour, texture and bold expressive brushstrokes is prominent in her art. In recent years, she is focusing on experimenting with intuitive painting as well as facilitating art activities with elder adults.
She encourages people to make art, specifically art that’s personal, meaningful and soothing to the soul. She is promoting creative self-expression amount elder adults in hope of empowering their mental and physical well-being.
Magic Place was inspired – like many of Dana’s paintings – by nature... She loves nature! Being in nature offers all of us the ultimate escape from anxieties and stresses of modern life. Nature nourishes our mind, body and soul and is our antidote to isolation and loneliness; it is our well-being.
Rainbow on Glebeholme Blvd. – Daphne McCormack
Daphne McCormack is an artist living in Toronto’s east end. She studied fine art at the Ontario College of Art and Design University, including a final year in Florence, Italy. She has worked as an artist educator at the AGrt Gallery of Ontario, Harbourfront Centre and many schools across Toronto.
A rainbow appeared one evening while two neighborhood girls were enjoying a bike ride. It seemed a hopeful moment during Toronto’s first COVID-19 summer and inspired the artist to create Rainbow on Glebeholme Blvd.
Toboggan Night – Dave Rheaume
Dave Rheaume is an award-winning artist of Métis descent. He worked in film and television for 30 years before becoming a professional artist.
Toboggan Night is an imagined, quintessentially East Toronto scene, inspired by winter activity at East Lynn Park near Dave’s home.
Our Community – Grade 1 & 2 French Immersion Students of Earl Beatty Public School
The grade 1 and 2 French immersion class were learning about community for social studies with their teacher, Alanna Peters, when they heard about the MGH's call for art.
The students wondered if they too could be considered local artists as they were just kids, yet decided to try. Students drew their favourite parts of living in the community around the hospital. They included Earl Beatty Public School, MGH, the subway, parks, their crossing guard and even the fox that kept appearing in their schoolyard.
Students drew the activities they enjoy doing in their neighbourhood. Together, they combined their ideas, worked together to arrange them and make decisions. Over several weeks they painted, each student contributing to the piece.
This painting is about the community they live in, and also fostered a community within their class. The experience taught them that if you work together and try your best, you can really do anything. Students were aged 6 to 7 when they created this painting.
Colours of the East – Elise Goodhoofd
Elise Goodhoofd is an established Toronto artist focusing on chalkart and colourful murals. She prides herself on understanding project objectives to create solutions that make you feel something. Graduating from Seneca College’s Graphic Design Program, her work is produced from a foundation of art and design knowledge. Elise doesn’t have a favorite colour – she loves using them all.
She understands that hospitals are the heart of any community. Every day, people in different situations walk through the doors. The range of joyous and challenging emotions is always present. Through its accountability to its patients and staff, MGH is East Toronto’s lifeline.
Colours of the East uses a range of colours that represent the diversity of individuals in East Toronto, but also the variety of emotions present. It also uses a broad selection of shapes. The shapes work together to build the mural and represent the beauty that exists in the chaos. Can you find the following? A streetcar. Three people. A row of houses. Three birds. The Beach lifeguard house. Three hands. Five hearts.
Elise believes colour represents life and hope – a reminder of what MGH helps bring to its community.
Turning Shades – Elizabeth Krnic
Simply Complicated Art was created for the purpose of making life simple for those who love art but can’t afford the price tag of recognized local artists or designer approved wall art.
Turning Shades was specially created for MGH, a splash of colour to brighten anybody’s day!
Hope – Ellen Cohen
Ellen Cohen is an abstract artist and intuitive painter. She has lived on the Danforth for the past 30 years, watching as it changes and grows. The pandemic inspired her to shop local and support local initiatives, which included sewing masks for MGH and creating a work of art for their new space.
Hope is meant to inspire possibilities. Painting brings a sense of calm to Ellen’s life and her goal is to transfer that feeling to others. The world is complex and by layering colours upon one another, this piece is meant to create a feeling of calm and inner peace.
Ellen’s work hangs in a variety of places – residential and commercial – in Toronto; Western Canada; Brooklyn; Tromso, Norway; and Umbria, Italy.
Below the City 1-3, 2019 – Esmond Lee
Esmond Lee is an artist, researcher and architect based in Scarborough. Lee explores long-term, intergenerational experiences of migration in peripheral spaces. He holds a Master of Architecture and is pursuing a Doctorate in Critical Human Geography.
Lee draws from these backgrounds to examine identity, belonging, and nuanced cultural and political borders in the built environment. Recent public artworks include a 250-foot-long installation for Nuit Blanche Toronto, developed during his time as the Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence, and a 30-foot-tall installation at Malvern Town Centre for CONTACT Photography Festival.
Lee’s current projects include two photobooks: Below the City, recognized by the Burtynsky Grant, and a community-driven book for Woodside Square Library as the Toronto Public Library Artist in Residence. His works are in the permanent collection of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Doris McCarthy Gallery at University of Toronto Scarborough.
Peonies No.8 (8:39PM & 9:12PM); Peonies No.10 (8:36PM & 8:58PM); Peonies No.12 (8:21PM & 9:12PM) – Fiona Freemark
Fiona Freemark is a photo-based artist who lives and works in Toronto. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in studio art from McMaster University in 2012.
In 2018, Fiona was selected to participate in the Doris McCarthy Artist-in-Residence Program at Fool’s Paradise, supported by the Ontario Heritage Trust. In 2022, her solo exhibition, "Sunset Watch," was featured as a Core Exhibition of the 2022 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.
Her work has been included in the Snap! Live Auction (2015, 2016 and 2019) and Art with Heart for Casey House (2017 and 2019). Her work is held in the RBC Collection and the corporate collection of Timbercreek. Fiona is a member of Gallery 44, Centre for Contemporary Photography. She is represented in Toronto by Dianna Witte Gallery.
We are here. – Heather Corbin
Heather Corbin makes collage illustrations – visual vignettes created with cast-offs that tell about characters, mood, and community. She is a design and communications professional and self-taught artist and illustrator who lives in East York.
We are here. is a collection of collage illustrations inspired by east-end residents: curious and distinct, bound together at this unique time and place.
Sandy Island Dock – Hugh EllioTT
Hugh Elliott is a creative technologist with a love for photography.
Realizing Pride Month 2021 was fast approaching, Hugh developed a light bar with RGB LEDs that would allow him to create ribbons of light. He used variations of the light bar to run a year-long project as a show of allyship with the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
Proceeds from sales during the time between Pride Month 2021 and 2022 were donated to a variety of 2SLGBTQIA+ led organizations.
The project ended with a two-day shoot showcasing WWE talent for Pride Month 2022.
High Arctic: Infinite Horizon #1 – Janet Read
Janet Read is a painter, musician and poet born and educated in Toronto. Her roots go back to the Ottawa Valley Irish explaining a fondness for fiddle music, poetry and the sea, including the inland sea of Lake Ontario.
Residencies in Newfoundland and Ireland, and travels in Norway, Iceland, Scotland and the high Arctic continue a lifetime’s investigation of water as metaphor for strength and fragility. High Arctic: Infinite Arctic Horizon #1 responds to the mysterious evanescent light and vanishing horizon in the arctic sea.
Janet is an active member of the local arts community. Exhibitions in commercial and public galleries include the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, the Varley Gallery of Markham, Art Gallery of Peterborough, Art Gallery of Northumberland and the Whitby Station Gallery. Paintings can be found in public and private collections in Canada and internationally in Australia, England and the U.S.
Orange Blooms – Jennifer Akkermans
Jennifer Akkermans is a mixed-media visual artist, specializing in intuitive printmaking using acrylic paints on a gel plate.
Jennifer's work is instantly recognizable through its use of bright, bold color and pattern. She makes her own stencils to use in her gel printing, and loves to use found objects to create texture.
This work, Orange Blooms, is a collage combination of printmaking techniques, including gelatin printing and linoleum printing.
Untitled, from Mended Leaves, 2020, 1 / 4; Untitled, from Mended Leaves, 2020, 1 / 4; Untitled, from Mended Leaves, 2020, 1 / 4 – Jennifer Long
Jennifer Long’s practice is propelled by an interest in the varied experiences of girls and women, and the limited ways in which they are represented within image making. Through a feminist lens, she works with constructed narratives that are inspired by the quiet moments and rituals in life where seemingly nothing (and everything) occurs.
Mended Leaves was initiated through Jennifer’s experience of and reflection on being a primary caregiver during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using collected petals and leaves, she used on-hand supplies to explore ways to transform the foliage through repairing tears, matching and reimagining colours and other such experimentation.
These instinctual and meditative explorations gave Jennifer time to reflect on the experience of mothering during a period filled with unease, when time bent, stood still and stretched in unfamiliar ways. Through this series, she considers how the balance of self-care and giving of oneself is fundamentally tied to communication.
Human Scale – John Ferri
John Ferri’s art blends elements of photography, collage and graphic design to create a unique visual perspective that balances precision, whimsy and a fascination with human movement.
His work can embody both simple, minimalist compositions as well as multi-layered imagery suffused with bright, bold colours. However, each work is infused with a single, consistent vision: the interplay of people in constructed spaces, real or imagined.
The intent is to capture the forces that shape, direct and sometimes overwhelm the human form. Themes of solitude, dignity and the search for significance are central.
Night Shift – Karin McLean
Karin McLean is a self-taught artist who began painting more than 10 years ago, inspired by the character of her East Danforth neighbourhood. Initially working in acrylic, she has expanded her repertoire to include oil, watercolour and mixed-media assemblages.
Walking her dog at all hours and in all weather, she began to notice things – how shadows lined a laneway, the glint of sunlight on a chimney stack, the details of dated architecture – and felt compelled to capture these images before they disappeared forever.
Her work documents familiar surroundings but also examines the notion of place, the sense of belonging, what makes us feel “home”. These paintings reflect an urban landscape but one that is quiet and still, finding beauty in the everyday world around us.
After living most of her life in East Toronto, she retired in 2020 and now paints full-time in Peterborough.
Piano – Karsten Petrat
Karsten Petrat is an illustrator and multidisciplinary designer. His work has been featured in a variety of international publications, such as The New York Times, The Guardian, Time and Wired. He also regularly contributes to the Literary Review of Canada.
Playing with shapes and colour, his work is distinctly recognizable for its simplicity and sense of humour. Karsten lives and works in The Beaches in Toronto.
Delphic Obscurity – Kirk Sutherland
Kirk Sutherland is a renowned colourist who was born with synesthesia. This blending of senses very much enhances his perception of colour and his overall creative process.
Delphic Obscurity, like most of Kirk’s pieces, encapsulates the unseen metaphysical realities of this dimension. This piece dwells in the realm of mystery, feelings, emotions and thoughts. Compositionally, this painting combines the elements of colour, form and texture while capturing the essence of spontaneity, motion, balance and depth in both an intuitive and a deliberate manner.
Kirk has exhibited his work under the representation of many art galleries internationally since the early '90s. Many of his pieces are included in both private and corporate collections globally.
Healing Horizons – Laura Nashman
Artist and flutist Laura Nashman brings colour and vibrancy to life itself. Her unique paintings enrich people’s lives with arresting, awe-inspiring colours. Each brushstroke serves to transport the viewer into a state of peace and tranquility. Her intuition guides her distinctive and inspired technique and colour palette.
As an award-winning flutist and music producer, Laura’s hope is to spread peacefulness through her “colour melodies” on canvas, harmonizing mind, body and spirit. Laura’s flute tone, made up of many subtle colours, is mirrored in her brush stroke, creating two complementary artforms.
She calls her art “spa-on-the-canvas”, giving viewers a moment of escape into serenity, self-reflection and peace. Her style is rich with emotion, at the same time both subtle and complex and invites the viewer to simply pause and breathe.
Her paintings have been displayed at art galleries, spas, offices, medical and dental practices, and private homes.
Don River Daydream – Lisa Litowitz
Lisa Litowitz is a second-career artist. She was formerly a retail fashion buyer who traveled frequently around the world. Always wanting to pursue her passion for art as a career, the COVID-19 pandemic allowed that pivot to become a reality.
After taking many years of painting lessons and workshops, she turned her classical landscape training with oils into her new distinctive style using vibrant acrylics. These colourful and contemporary landscapes are inspired by nature with an imaginative and abstracted twist. Her subjects focus on many of the parks and ravines throughout the city, including the Don.
Don River Daydream celebrates the trails and foliage along that riverbed that she hikes and bikes in the summer months. She hopes that her uplifting colour palette and saturated swirling strokes will brighten the days of staff and patients at MGH.
Evening Sky – Lori Dell
Lori Dell is a visual artist who is best known for her emotionally charged view of traditional subject matter, and fresh approaches to textural mixed-media works, architectural paintings and portraiture.
Lori produces large concept works with skillful execution of colour and material, often described as bold, spiritual and meditative.
With an artistic career spanning decades, her work can be found in private and public collections internationally.
The Heart of Leslieville – Natalie Draz
Exploring the fragmented experience of an urban city, Natalie Draz uses her bike and walking routes as starting points for her maps. Each drawn map is both a document of actual buildings and a fantastical reimagining of her pathway becoming an entire world of its own.
These shared pathways are intimately known by many strangers, who delight in recognizing and tracking their own neighbourhood within Natalie’s intricate papercut drawings.
Using pen, ink, watercolour and pigment, she illustrates and papercuts cities that exist between reality and her own perspectives. Natalie’s multi-layered papercuts begin as watercolour drawings.
Each layer is hand cut and stacked together into a fragmented cityscape. The final original artworks are archival limited edition framed papercuts.
Natalie Draz has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Toronto, and an Master in Fine Art from Concordia University where she combined traditional and digital print media techniques into large-scale paper works.
Time Passage – Randal James
With a background in commercial design, Randal James has produced commissions in watercolour and acrylic mediums for over 20 years. Randal first found his passion while in Paris, France, on honeymoon.
Armed with a watercolour travel palette and a few simple brushes, Randal worked his way around the city painting in parks and cafés. There, he discovered his wonderful gift of artistic expression
Randal’s piece, entitled Time Passage, is a celebration of the diversity that built the Queen Street Viaduct bridge between lower York and East York, which first opened in 1911.
Studying archival footage, Randal made construction workers the spotlight for the piece, along with bustling community members passing over through the ages. And much like the hospital, Randal’s piece is a constant reminder for us to build a better tomorrow in our community. Easter egg: Look for a map of East York somewhere in the painting…
Her Self Image – Shelley Cinnamon
Shelley Cinnamon has lived and worked in Toronto for more than 40 years. Painting became her main focus following her career as a graphic design and art director. She has traveled extensively around the world for both pleasure and work. Her love of painting grew and developed from childhood as she visited galleries throughout Europe, Africa and Asia.
In the last 15 years, Shelley has delved more intently into developing her own style and voice in her painting. She has had her own one-woman art shows and has participated in numerous group shows.
Her goal is to keep growing as an artist and expanding her creativity. She works predominantly in acrylics with light, colour and space being elements she likes to focus on.
Her Self Image features Shelley’s fascination with shadow and textures. It reflects upon the struggles young woman can go through with body image and loneliness.
Untitled #2 and Untitled #24 – Thomas Brasch
Thomas Brasch has a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Education and Master of Business Administration. He has devoted 25 years to education. However, his passion for photography drives his creative expression.
Completely self-taught in the art, he is able to showcase his perceptions of beauty, turning the real into surreal. With a background in sciences, French literature, photography, education and business, he is able to blend the skills he has learned and apply them to his second career as a visual artist.
The Oculus series captures the beauty found in everyday common elements. The image is reworked so that we can perceive and appreciate the colours, vibrancy, textures, patterns and symmetry.
Thomas makes interpretation and perception the subjects of the image and not the actual still life or landscape source image. Inconspicuous details become a singularity of beauty and truth in the eye of the beholder. Each piece is a self-reflection into the definition of our own personal aesthetics.
Hearts – Ziggo
Zack Gibbison, a.k.a. Ziggo, began his career as an artist at the age of 15 focusing on graffiti and street art-style works. Over the years, he has developed and adapted many styles and mediums into his artworks. From spray paint to acrylic, paper to resin, he combines all aspects and materials at his disposal.
As an Indigenous Toronto local, Ziggo finds inspiration from the beauty of city life and the simplicity of the outdoors. He is a self-taught artist whose work thrives on spontaneity. This allows his work to develop organically while utilizing his own techniques.
JT 04.30.2022; SC 08.16.2021; TW 03.21.2022 – Zoey Zoric
Zoey Zoric is a painter on a mission to redefine how we look at ourselves, using a unique blend of old iPhones and classical painting: Eye Phones.
Zoey uses her paintings as an exploration of self-perception and interconnection.
Using reclaimed iPhones and iPads, Zoey paints portraits of everyday people, with a focus on their very expressive eyes. The phones are mounted in frames and shown in series.
Zoey's paintings celebrate resilience and personal power in others! Every portrait is a celebration of a person's beauty of who they are in the moment – to bask in that perfect imperfection.