Sandrine Dickel

I like the simplicity and the shapes of this artist’s work. I remember my tutor in Drawing Skills referring to “drainting” or “prawings”. works that hover somewhere between painting and drawing.

As with many of the artists here, I didn’t get a chance to speak with due to the crowds.

Julie Desmarais

Julie Desmarais is a predominately landscape painter, hailing from Quebec. Her brush strokes are extremely tiny, recalling pointillism and Seurat. From a few paces back, these brushstrokes blend into a slightly out of focus photographic quality. Like summer vacation pictures snapped too quickly, with light blooming off the water.

Chuck Lewis

This artist’s booth was filled with these intricate sepia drawings with watercolour washes. Incredibly intricate. I got talking with the Artist who apparently applied to bring both these works and his oil paintings. However the art festival only accepted his application for these drawings — probably due to the sheer number of oil painters present.

The artist told me that he does all his sketches on site — whether in North America, Egypt or Europe — but he makes his drawings in his studio here in Canada. He showed me some of his sketches and they were just as, if not more, intricate than the finished works with pages of notes attached. It was frankly intimidating.

Somewhat annoyingly, his website does not list all the relevant data related to his works (size, date, etc). So it goes.

Alex R.M. Thompson

The artist is a printmaker from Alberta, whose subject matter revolves around the industrial. Many of his pieces are phenomenally huge for an etching and I can’t even begin to fathom the amount of effort that goes into the process.

He brought one of the plates used to produce an edition he had on display, and it was really interesting to see the physical artifact of the process.

One thing that drew me to his work was that he will produce editions throughout the creation of a single plate, and that he keeps his editions quite small. This creates works that cannot be repeated as the plate itself has essentially been destroyed.

Frank Danielson

From a distance, another artist whose work visually blends due to pointillism-like approach to applying paint. Except here the artist’s lanscapes float against highly abstract backgrounds.

The artist used to work predominately in oils, but has now switched over to acrylics. Its interesting to see the effects they’re able to achieve in this medium. I wonder how I’d do the same using Oils — it would take far longer. I can see why acrylics would appeal.

Matthew Tarini

This artist had an incredible diversity of subject matter in the works he brought to the festival. Landscapes, portraiture, figure painting and so many flowers. His flowers were what caught my attention — from a few feet back they looked almost like photographs.

He is incredibly prolific with these flower studies, and that practice shows in the realism he is able to achieve.

We spoke briefly, but mostly around the weather — I can’t imagine having to attend a booth for three days in 30+ C degree weather.

Tania Hillion

When I dropped by this artist’s booth, they were in conversation with another couple. I was drawn in by the creepy, almost macabre air to the portraits she had on display.

There is something deeply unsettling the gaze of these individuals, but also great whimsy and a dream-like quality. Pity I wasn’t able to speak with the artist.

Angela Snieder

I discovered, from visiting the artist’s website, that they appear to be a predominately installation artist. What they brought to the festival, though, were intricate etchings of natural subjects. The roots of trees looking like tangles of drift wood, or expertly observed mushroom clusters. They really were lovely.

One of their installation works uses a camera obscura in reverse: a darkened room gets an image cast up on a wall, reflected from the contents of a small dark box. Another dreamlike artwork.

Zach Atticus

I’ve known about this artist for some time. They have produced a series of works related to Toronto scenes. The ones I’m familiar with, and also the ones he brought to the show, are twilight or night scenes with intensely coloured light. There is a cinematic moment to the images.

Having been to many of the places he paints, at similar times of day, I’m struck by how this artist is able to amplify the colours and light in the scene. My Toronto often looks mundane and grey, and yet his is pushed squarely into the realm of the cinema.

David Connolly

Another artist I didn’t get a chance to speak with, but it is clear from their work that the are inspired by Canada’s maritime provinces, and their particular landscape.

Oleg Lipchenko

These are incredible works. Intricate not just in their subject matter but in the pencil work. It is utterly beyond me how long these pieces must take to make, let alone the creativity to summon these images.

All of his work that I saw are nightmarishly unreal. Trips to wonderland inspired by darkness.

Andrew Scheglov

Scheglov’s art caught my attention as being the most unapologetic queer related art in the show. Realist paintings reminiscent of polaroid snapshots, showing young men single or coupled, in various interior and exterior locations.

as before, I had no chance to speak with the artist but from their festival page I read they alternate between intimate queer portraiture (as on display at the festival) and crowd-scapes drawn from post-soviet Russia. Quite the dichotomy.

Boyd Waites

I’ll be the first to say that I’m not a big fan of abstraction. But the work that Boyd Waites had brought to the festival was strangely meditative like pondering fog off my porch. It was an odd experience reacting that way to his paintings.

Elske deGroot

I’m familiar with encaustic, conceptually, but hadn’t been up close with any particular works. This artist layers encaustic over top of photograhs and collage, creating these subtly layered, moody pieces.

We got into a long conversation about her work, and how she holds encaustic workshops in Europe. Next year is apparently Edinburgh. I’m very much tempted — especially since my husband would likely join for the trip.

Peer Christensen

I was drawn to this artist’s work literally through the leaves in his paintings. Another artist producing works that glimmer with out of focus light. I found it interesting that I could see how the painting was applied in layers, with the sunlight coming last.

Perhaps someday I’ll have wall space large enough for the works that do most justice to

Henry Hao

An illustrator of downtown Toronto. The location depicted here is a block over from my office — its an odd, dilapidated structure. I’m sure it will soon be a the site of a new condo tower.

John Y Lynch

It should surprise no-one that an art festival in Toronto will have many artists that paint Toronto. Nor should it surprise anyone that there will be many Torontonian artists. This artist lives not far from myself, and I’d seen his work as part of the West Toronto Art Walk — a show put on by a collective that the artist is a member of.

I had enjoyed that art walk, and got to see some of the works by the artists in my part of the city.