Meet the Gestures Artists

With work so breathtaking, words are necessary to describe the beauty of Gestures. Twist Gallery’s two-month-long exhibition displays 8 local Toronto artists’ brush strokes, showing just how intentional and deliberate each stroke is. Experience the feelings illustrated in this exhibition, it is sure to leave a mark

→ Join us at 1100 Queen Street West, Tuesday to Saturday from 11 AM to 6 PM ←

Gestures Opening Reception

Join us for light appetizers, refreshments, music, and a chance to meet the artists.

Thursday, April 7th, 2022 | 6 pm to 9 pm

1100 Queen Street W

Along with the incredible works done by our various artists it is important to us that we get to know each artist more personally. We asked each artist to send in a short paragraph explaining a bit about who they are in order for us, and you to feel more connected to them outside of their work! All of the artists from this exhibit have such incredible stories and explanations for why they love their craft, and we invite you to learn more about how they came to be who they are, and why they decided to create. Keep reading to get the full story!

MEET THE GESTURES ARTISTS

Alice Kelso

Alice Kelso is a Canadian artist, teacher, and social advocate. Though based mainly out of Hamilton and Toronto, she has also shown her work at pop-up exhibitions in the UK. As a graduate of OCAD University's painting program (BFA) and Sheridan College's social services program (SSW), she teaches (and learns) through an anti-oppressive and holistic framework. Alice's work is abstract but representational and her process is expressive and cathartic. It showcases the patterns created by natural growth through texture, mark-making and colour harmonies; conceptual interconnectivity between art and science, people and the world around them.

Andrea Higgins

Andrea is a contemporary self-taught artist with a background in music, film and dance. 

Her work is physical and improvisational, driven by emotion captured through an abstract lens. She describes her works as a dance with one's self, spontaneous and free, releasing energy and emotions in a limitless direction. 

Similar to the way music creates a soundtrack to our lives, colours play a role in the background of our everyday moments yet carry meanings that vary from person to person. 

Andrea lives and works in Toronto, Canada.

Andrea Rosara

Andrea Rosara is an interdisciplinary artist from Venice, Italy. He works primarily in the media of painting and drawing and has an interest in printmaking. He holds a Bachelor’s of Fine Art and a Master’s of Fine Art/Visual Studies in Painting, Drawing and Printmaking from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. Andrea has exhibited his work in a wide variety of solo and group exhibitions in Venetian galleries and art festivals including Atelier 3+10, the Festival of Contemporary Art Giudecca, La Fenice Gallery, Techwood Venezia, and Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. He is now based in Toronto, Canada.

Caroline Chorazy

Caroline Chorazy is a self-taught, Toronto-based abstract artist specializing in acrylics and gold leaf. She draws her inspiration from natural elements in an attempt to capture organic movement and flow in all of her artwork. Her use of gold leaf and pigment gives each piece a unique gesture and ability to change appearance or shape in cohesion with the room and light.

Moses Salihou

Moses is a contemporary artist whose artwork reads like visual poetry; subjective & limitless in its interpretation.  His inspiration and creativity are sourced from his surroundings, the environment and his imagination.  Moses’ creative process is guided by a desire to establish a dialogue through his work without setting any limits.

As a versatile artist, Moses uses various supports (canvas, paper, reclaimed materials) and mediums (oil, acrylic, watercolour, pigment and charcoal).  Originally from Cameroon, Moses now calls Toronto home and his artwork is proudly featured in private collections in Canada and abroad.

Seokhoon Jun

Seokhoon Jun loves family, friends, and nature. Currently studying art therapy at Toronto Art Therapy Institute with an interest in how art and spirituality come together in life. Glad and grateful for the opportunity to connect through art.

Valentina Youkhanna

Valentina Youkhanna is a self-taught artist who has always had a creative side since childhood. She spent a lot of her time as a kid drawing, colouring, and painting. In her early 20s, she began painting with acrylics and it’s been love ever since. She is not only passionate about the arts and creativity but also had a career as a mental health worker and facilitated art groups for those facing mental health and addiction challenges. In her late 20s, Valentina decided creativity would take the main seat in her life and pursued an education in hairstyling which ultimately led her to work in both professions. By 2019 she would dedicate and commit more time to her creative outlets and left the mental health sector to solely focus on her hairstylist career and art. 

Valentina is passionate about healing through art and believes everyone is creative. She believes everyone has gifts and talents in the arts but as time goes on and people “grow up” they forget what it means to play, to have fun, and let your mind be creative. She hopes to see more people tune into their intuition and create from the heart and soul to express or heal. She values community, supporting one another and believes there is abundance for all in the art world and no need to compete because as she states, “no two people can draw the same line.”

Vian Ewart

Vian’s early career was in the graphic side of journalism. About 15 years ago Vian had the opportunity to go to the Gallery School at the AGO, and then the Toronto School of Art, and then the three-year adult art course at Central Tech Art School. For several years since, Vian has been part of the ProjectArt studio group in Toronto. He has also been involved with a number of group exhibitions from the Praxis Gallery to Lennox Contemporary to Don Valley/Forest Hill and most recently Gallery 1313. Last year he completed a couple of commissions in Canada and the U.S.

We hope to see you there!

This exhibit is one of the longer ones, and we felt that this was necessary due to the complexity and emotional depth inherent in a lot of the artists pieces. We hope that this blog post gave you some insight into why each artist decided to express themselves through this medium, and how their art has helped shaped their life. We are excited to see you at the new exhibit Gestures and hope this work will inspire you in the way it was meant too.

Get to Know the Artists From Chromatics! March 2nd-26th

This month Twist Gallery has chosen 7 local Toronto artists to be a part of our Chromatics Exhibit. Each of these artists has their very own unique inspirations, creative processes and messages they display in their art. Their artwork communicates the same theme of expressing themselves through the use of bold and vibrant colours. How they use and express these colours is entirely unique.

→ Join us at 1100 Queen Street West, Tuesday to Saturday from 11 AM to 6 PM ←

Liz Szymczak

Liz Szymczak’s painting journey started in 2018 as therapy for anxiety, post-heart attack. She initially started painting rocks that she gathered from her walks at the lake. From there she jumped to small canvases, and now Liz’s largest piece to date is 36” x 48” and she hopes to go even larger! Painting opened up in her a well of creative energy that lay dormant for most of her life. Now painting is her sanctuary! All of her work is intuitive and many of her works have appeared to her in dreams. Liz’s only hope is that her art makes the viewer feel- because that is what makes life so beautiful!

Tamar Kevorkian

Tamar is an Armenian Canadian painter born in Beirut, Lebanon. Tamar grew up in Montreal, where she studied Fine Arts at Concordia University and Photography at Dawson Institute of Photography. Her infinite imagination and inspiration from her life experiences along with the influence of Pablo Picasso give life to an empty canvas.

Tamar’s preferred mediums are acrylic, oil pastel, charcoal, and ink, using brushes and palette knives of various sizes. She brings forth harmony to explore and create the visual imagery of her cubist graffiti paintings. Now living in Toronto, Canada, Tamar actively paints both on canvas and on digital media.

“Art should have no boundaries, therefore I paint freely and boldly because Art always matters.”

— Tamar Kevorkian

Judith McKay

Judith McKay is a Toronto-area abstract surrealist artist. Her intensely coloured, vibrant landscapes and portraits are influenced by magical realism and surrealistic dreams. The concept underlying her work is that of inseparable and contradictory opposites. The playful duality of abstract and representation—altering perception and reality. Interconnectedness and dissolving boundaries permeate her work—one element flows into another, merging and mixing, creating something altogether new. We think we recognize the places and people in these paintings but they are not as we remember them.

Her artworks featured at the Chromatics exhibit depict powerfully ethereal women spirits and sensual flowing skies, birds, and flowers in vivid, hopeful colours. Her mission in creating these works is to offer an alternative elsewhere, an escape from the chaotic world we find ourselves in. She uses acrylic on canvas; painting with swirling motion to give a sense of floating in ambient air. 

Recent exhibitions include the Loft Gallery Group Exhibition, The Artist Project, Toronto Outdoor Art Fair, HIRAETH, a solo show at the Urban Gallery, Toronto and FUSION, a shared solo show with Moses Salihou at the Freedom Factory Gallery, Toronto. Her work can also be found in private and corporate collections across Canada, the US, and overseas.

Adeeba Aslam

Adeeba comes from a deeply artistic family of painters, potters and clothing designers with roots in Pakistan. She is a self-taught artist who derives inspiration for her work from her spirituality, lived experiences and interactions with her community.

Over the past several years Adeeba has been trained with and is currently under the mentorship of a prominent Canadian artist, Catherine Shea.

Influenced by expressionist painters, Adeeba typically doesn't have a plan before exploring the canvas. She works with acrylic paint and selected mediums using unconventional tools and techniques to create her abstract pieces. Using bold colours, spatial and organic structures, Adeeba’s paintings evoke an ethereal depth and drama in telling her stories. The process of painting is both a deeply emotional and meditative experience for Adeeba.

Adeeba’s work has been featured at various locations in Toronto, where she was born, raised and currently resides.

For more information about her work, contact adeeba.aslam@gmail.com. Check out her Instagram: @adeeba.aslam.art.

Andrea Higgins

Andrea is a contemporary self-taught artist with a background in music, film, and dance. Her work is physical and improvisational, driven by emotion captured through an abstract lens. She describes her works as a dance with one's self, spontaneous and free, releasing energy, and emotions in a limitless direction. 

Similar to the way music creates a soundtrack to our lives, colours play a role in the background of our everyday moments yet carry meanings that vary from person to person. 

Andrea lives and works in Toronto, Canada. Check out her Instagram: @andreahigginsart.

Giuseppe Mandarino

Rooted in Italian tradition, Giuseppe was born in November 1976 and raised in the Downsview neighbourhood of Toronto. Giuseppe has been passionate about putting paint to canvas since his childhood. Experimenting with his artistic style by fusing a combination of textures, colours, and mediums his creations are one of a kind pieces developed through emotions, surroundings and human connections. Giuseppe speaks through his work, and each paint stroke is an expression. His art is created to channel feeling, movement, and inspiration for those that view it. With a love for his hometown of Toronto, Giuseppe has created custom work for an array of local art collectors, entrepreneurs, and admirers. The world that surrounds us has inspiration everywhere if we take the time to notice it, which Giuseppe displays on his canvas.  

“Do something you really enjoy and it will never feel like work. I’m grateful for my family’s support, and for the opportunities I have been given.”

— Giuseppe Mandarino

Kim Benoit

Creating art is the perfect occasion for an artist to explore happiness. Experiencing art is a mindful activity which allows time and space to experience an emotion. In the paintings from Kim’s series “What Is Happiness?”, she proposes to expound on happiness. What aspects of art make someone feel good? Making a painting that aims to have someone explore their happiness or even to guide them to feel happy is no easy task. She needed to find a visual vocabulary to define happiness. All artists choose a palette to convey the mood. Dark colours can be calming or depressing, bright colours can be uplifting or overwhelming. The use of space can attract or repel. Loose brush strokes and flowing organic shapes can be freeing or disorienting. Strict movement and controlled geometric shapes can evoke safeness or confinement. All of these elements affect the experience. In Kim’s series ‘What Is Happiness?’ She selected paintings that are bright, flowing, and organic for the Chromatics exhibition. To see Kim’s other paintings which express stricter controlled geometric expressions, go to kimbenoitart.com.

The artist’s portion of the proceeds of the sale of these paintings will be donated to research and programs which support people with a mental illness.

We hope to see you there!

Meet Aml Sultana!

“I enjoy creating abstract art because I had the opportunity to explore a new way of expression and could use so many different skills and techniques to create texture”

— Aml Sultana

“Extracting the Abstract” artist Aml Sultana

What inspires you?

I am inspired by everything ranging from people, my past experiences, and especially music. Even though there are so many different people in my life, they each serve an important purpose in life and help me grow. After deciding to seriously pursue art, I realized that everybody expresses themselves through a form of art, whether they realize it or not. I am a strong believer in experiences telling the tale of your life, so my paintings are created in a way to tell stories from my past experiences. Music is an important aspect of my life so it is attached to every piece of work I have created. When looking at my past work, I can recall what music I was listening to which also reminds me of how I was feeling at that moment. Lana Del Rey, who I discovered in the 9th grade, has been the most impactful artist for me and she is a part of almost every piece of art that I have created since high school.

“Plated Guilt” by Aml Sultana

Why are you drawn to this subject?

Before creating this collection and being introduced to abstract art, I had the wrong perception that art had to be “clean” and “perfect. I used to believe that realistic paintings were the basis of creative art and that every line and detail had to be perfect. My first submission piece for this exhibit was out of my comfort zone because there was no plan and it was all emotion, which is what my past work was about. I enjoy creating abstract art because I had the opportunity to explore a new way of expression and could use so many different skills and techniques to create texture. Abstract art unlocked a different artistic skill that I did not know that I had and I will definitely will be exercising it in the future.

What is your collection about?

My collection focuses on my favourite pieces of work that I have created so far. I was finally able to step out of my comfort zone during the creative process, as I used different materials and an even bigger canvas. This collection tells my story of this past summer and all of the amazing opportunities that I had. I was able to discover new skills, such as murals, and experienced a new feeling of motivation and confidence towards my creative artwork. I am excited to be a part of an exhibition in a gallery that I have admired for a long time. It’s about being sure that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

“Auriferous” by Aml Sultana

Meet Anna Medvedeva!

“I truly have a passion for creating art in whatever form. There’s beauty everywhere. I can interpret that and bring what I feel to the viewer and that is the most important thing for me. The amazing world of colors is my day-long joy and obsession.”

— Anna Medvedeva

“Extracting the Abstract” artist Anna Medevedeva

What is your collection about?

 My search for new forms of expression led to my Color Field painting series. My paintings are all about nature, feelings and elements of landscapes.

How did you start out as an artist?

I began painting in my early childhood. I studied in Kustodiev Art School and Academy of Fine Arts in St-Petersburg, Russia. In early 2000’s I moved from traditional realism to my current abstraction.

“Green and Blue” by Anna Medvedeva

What inspires your art?

My inspiration comes from everyday experience and extensive travels. I try to convey the mood and feelings of places and perceptions of those memories. I transform my vision into poetic abstraction, diffused with spiritual resonance and discover the hidden beauty harmony of colour.

Can you walk us through your process of creating an art piece?

My current passion is monotype printmaking. Its unique and original painting made on smooth surfaces such as silicone pad, plexiglass or gelli-plate and transferred on paper. Thanks to this technique, I create unique paintings that cannot be copied or repeated.

The medium of monotype is a form of painting favored since the 17th century by artists such as Rembrandt, Matisse, Chagall, Picasso, Gauguin, Sam Francis, and many others. I spend a lot of time coloring and re-coloring shapes and lines until the dynamics between elements come together and a definite composition arises. I had many lovely and calming feelings working with this series.