Artists

Virginia Dupuis is a local artist who lives and paints in Blackburn Hamlet. Working in the traditional medium of oil, Virginia Dupuis takes macroscopic views, often exploring them on a larger-than-life scale. Dupuis strives for a strong tactile quality in her work, building up layers of paint. Her work suggests a narrative around such subject matter as the handcrafts of tatting, knitting or crocheting, to the tangled foliage, fruit stems and their growth pattern in nature.
Dupuis is a graduate of the 3 year Fine Arts Diploma at the Ottawa School of Art. She refined her oil painting practice by completing two Advanced Studios in oil painting, as well as two Apprenticeships in oil painting with a concentration in colour theory. Virginia has won numerous juror’s awards and grants from both the AOE Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Council. She was invited by Artspace613 to create an installation for Ontario2017 Culture Days. She is also an elected member of the Society of Canadian Artists.

“I respect perseverance, patience and resilience and am drawn to a subject by its beauty, colour and rhythm. Exploring colouristically the drama in patterns, suggestive of creation, growth and endurance, allows me to see beauty in the ordinary.”

Painter Sylvie Provost lives and works in Huberdeau, a municipality located in the Laurentians. Since her youth, creativity has always been part of her life. Interior decorating and sewing were here first creative practices that eventually led her to painting. Provost trained with several renowned painters. Her goal was to know several mediums to have a greater knowledge of her art. This brought her to discover acrylics as her medium of choice.
Since 2000, Provost has participated in several exhibitions in Canada, New York and Spain. In 2003, she participated in the Regional Museum of Argenteuil Symposium. Her pieces are sold throughout the world and are part of various public and private collections.

“For more than twenty years, my passion for art has been transposed into visual art, especially painting. I also experimented with sculpture, but my true calling is painting. For years now, I’ve worked with several mediums such as pastels, charcoal, casein, oil paints, watercolours and mixed techniques to finally direct my art toward acrylic, which is my favorite medium. Colours fascinate me, I like playing with the possibilities they offer me. Colourist by instinct, it is with great strokes of the spatula, directed here and there, that the pigments are placed on my canvas as an emotion that leads me to feel all the vibrations that surround me. I transpose this energy in my paintings through the bright colours that I use and the whimsical characters and flower bouquets that I create. I use a diversified palette but the texture and the research of the colour and its pairings are very important in my creation process. This action, which in a theatrical movement brings me to total freedom, is a vital need for me.”

Everist Prokofiev was born in Torun, Poland in 1959. He and his family left Poland when he was six years old, settling in Toronto. Prokofiev was immersed in music and the visual arts and throughout his childhood, developing his love for the fine arts at a very young age. Experiencing pressure from his family to follow in the musical footsteps of his great uncle, Sergei Prokofiev, Prokofiev found that he was much more comfortable composing on canvas. He continued to hone his artistic skills through private painting lessons and at the Ontario College of Art. He received much recognition and numerous awards even before he reached 18 years of age.
After a long career in the Automotive and Home Renovation Industries, Prokofiev returned to his creative dreams. His travels from British Columbia to Newfoundland, from the Arctic to the distant shores of the Caribbean re-sparked Prokofiev’s creative instincts. Observing nature magnetized Prokofiev to his canvas, and continues to provide him with a limitless source of inspiration. He always travels with his easel and box of paints in hand. Prokofiev has cultivated his passion by painting under the instruction of several well-established Canadian and International artists. In 2016, Prokofiev was chosen to be part of the Canadian delegation at the 6th Edition of “Artistes du monde, exposition internationale” in Cannes, France. This was a major turning point for the artist, establishing his oeuvre on the world stage.
Prokofiev and his family now reside in Southern Ontario, making his favourite inspirational landscapes—Algonquin Park, Georgian Bay and the rolling Caledon Hills—easily accessible. In the summer months, he and his family reside in the mountains of Charlevoix, Québec, a place that over the past 100 years, has been a favourite destination for many of Canada’s renowned painters. Prokofiev is very involved in the Arts community. He is a member of several Art Societies in Ontario and Com2Art association in France. He teaches classes and holds palette knife painting seminars for all ages and skill levels, believing that awareness through education will ensure the longevity of the fine arts. Prokofiev’s paintings adorn the walls of private homes, and are found in corporate collections across North America, The Caribbean and Europe.

Fraser Radford was born in Brockville, ON in 1987. The Kingston-area artist has worked with galleries and museums in Kingston, Toronto and Brockville, and has apprenticed with Shayne Dark, one of Canada’s prominent sculptors. Radford holds an BAH in Art History, with a minor in Religious Studies, from Queen’s University; a Fine Arts diploma from St. Lawrence College, Brockville; and a post-graduate certificate in Studio Process Advancement from the Haliburton School of the Arts. His work is held in private collections and has been exhibited in numerous group shows across Ontario and the United States. He has also been published in several magazines across Canada and the U.S.

"The title for my current series of works is Pouring Galaxies. It refers to the method of creating the works, by utilizing a process where I thin out acrylic paint with a mixture of water and a surfactant called Acrylic Flow Release, then pour the paints onto the raw canvas. The method of pouring allows the paint to blend naturally, and without interruption from myself. The resulting canvases appear ethereal in nature, reminiscent of the photographs taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of various nebulae and galaxies.
The paintings in this series are mainly influenced by the Colour Field/Post-Painterly Abstraction artists of the 1960's like Helen Frankenthaler, Friedel Dzubas, Larry Poons, Jules Olitski, Paul Jenkins, Leon Berkowitz, Sam Gilliam, etc. Colour is the main subject of these works, taking into consideration how the colours combine, through the process of osmosis, the liquefied paint getting absorbed into the weave of the raw, unstretched canvas, blending and layering over one another."

The youngest in a family of five children, Danielle Cloutier was born April 1st, 1959 in Ottawa. She is the daughter of an agriculturist from the Byward Market. Her parents Lorenzo and Therese provided considerable support in her artistic endeavours. Ottawa’s High School of Commerce, her personal growth in fine arts evolved under the guidance of Mrs. Willamina Pinkus, the drawing and painting teacher, and Ms. Colliers, the figure drawing teacher. With dreams of fulfillment, Cloutier absorbed her surroundings and proceeded to imitate her older brother's detailed artwork. At age thirteen she won her first international competition in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This first accomplishment led to her decision to become an artist. Soon afterwards, she had a successful first art show through the Fédération national des femmes canadiennes-françaises in Ottawa's St. Laurent. This further inspired her to express her style in her art work. Cloutier has exhibited her works over the years in the Ottawa region and has won many first place titles in art shows. She has been featured in the Ottawa Valley Guide for all artists in the Ottawa region. Her works have been displayed in several publications and magazines such as Folkart and Parkhurst Exchange. She lives in the "deep woods" of East Aldfield Québec where she is currently building a stone cottage which includes an artificial handmade lake named "Lily Francine" in her sisters' memory.

Henriette Ethier (1950) was born in Dalkeith, Ontario. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts and a Master’s in Education, both completed at the University of Ottawa. Throughout the years she saw the need to pursue various courses and workshops in art to complement and nourish her knowledge and refine her skills in different fields of the artistic landscape. This has incontestably sharpened her perception of today’s artistic debates and trends. With 35 years of experience as an art teacher, Ethier enthuses she has learned a great amount from her students.
Ethier has participated in over seventy solo and group shows since 1975. Her works have been shown in Ontario, Québec, Germany and Chili. Many of her works are part of private and public collections, including at the Embassy of the State of Kuwait in Ottawa, La maison de la culture de Gatineau and the University of Ottawa. She is a member of several art associations such as BRAVO (Bureau des regroupements des artistes visuels de l’Ontario), and la GNO, (Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario). Ethier presently lives in Ottawa and maintains an active production. Photography, painting and sculpture remain an essential part of her process.

Andrée Christensen is a poet, novelist, literary translator, visual artist and gardener. In collaboration with internationally renowned artists from Ontario and Québec—Jennifer Dickson, Tony Urquhart, Roland Giguere, Pavel Skalnik, Huguette Bouchard-Bonet and Christine Palmieri—she has produced five artist books combining her poetry and their visual works. Her own photographs and collages are often included in her published books of poetry. She has written more than twenty works of poetry, novels, stories and literary translations, which have received numerous awards and distinctions. Most recently, she was honoured with the Prix du livre d’Ottawa award for French fiction.

“The very process of collage, which liberates images from their context, empties them of their initial meaning, invites both the artist and the observer to listen to the irrational aspect of their being and, depending on personal perceptions, to create new associations that reflect private emotions. Collages invite us to create new stories and to make our own poetic and dreamlike associations. Each observer thus becomes the author of his or her own creation.”

Adèle Gauthier is a local Ottawa artist, who has been painting for forty years. She has a Fine Arts degree from both Ottawa University and British Columbia University. She also studied at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, the Haliburton School of Art and Design, and the Ottawa School of Art. Gauthier has worked under several mentors including Gordon Smith, Andrea Mossop and Yves Laroque. Oil paint has always been her medium of choice, but at present she is exploring the mysteries of encaustic paint.

“The latin word "pentimento" is "an alteration in a painting, evidenced by traces of previous work, showing that the artist has changed his mind as to the composition during the process of painting". In english it means "to repent". Well, this is what I do all day. I paint something beautiful, then I scratch it off, leaving traces, so that the real truth comes to the surface, well beyond the idea that was originally in my brain.”

Adèle Gauthier est une artiste de la région d'Ottawa. Elle possède un diplôme en Arts Visuels de l’Université d’Ottawa et de l’Université de la Colombie Britannique. Elle a suivi de nombreux cours à l’Université d’Art et de Désign d’Emily Carr, l’École d’Art d’Ottawa et au Collège des Arts de Haliburton. Elle a aussi travaillé avec différents mentors, dont Gordon Smith, Andrea Mossop et Yves Laroque. L’huile a toujours été son médium de choix jusqu’à ce qu’elle découvre l’encaustique et ses propriétés envoûtantes. La nature et la spiritualité sont ses sources premières d’inspiration.