May 12, 2018

Previously Featured Artists

@artboxevents

Natasha Fernandes, founder of Artbox Events, has been an artist since her earliest memories. Her kindergarten met with her parents to let them know she was a talented artist. They also noticed her main subject was the female form which she continues to be inspired by until this day. She began by drawing and gravitated towards painting during her high school years. Projects of hers that were posted in the hallways of her school, created controversy among the faculty and students. After that reaction, she always looked to spark curiosity and evoke emotions from her viewers, with her art. She went to Sheridan for Art fundamentals and once completed she decided to continue her artistic journey outside of school.

Natasha created this platform for local artists to display their work and interact with wide audiences of art enthusiasts.

@bento_box

Rachel Bento (b. 1992) is an artist from the eastern Caribbean island of Antigua and Barbuda. Bento moved to Toronto in 2010 to study fine art at OCAD University, and remains here today.

Bento’s work primarily consists of self-portraits done in oil and acrylic, often expressing her dreams in order to acknowledge issues and better understand or work through complicated or suppressed emotions in waking life.

@mmaaytahh

Mia Maaytah is a young artist who is seemingly obsessed with depicting nude women on large canvas’. Her artistic journey has been a long one, and one that has only recently been able to reach its full explicitness. Up until this point, nudity, seduction, and all that is a woman was not excepted by those she was around. It was not until Mia moved to the downtown core of Toronto and received the opportunity to immerse herself within the culture of today and not yesterday that she was finally able to explore her creativity and project my femininity into my art.

@drunkinamidnightchoir

Tanya Solonyka is a Toronto based artist working in multiple disciplines. Her art focuses on expressing a mood that is honest and raw. She enjoys creating a slightly altered view on reality and is often inspired by the human psyche. Her first artistic love growing up was photography. She was largely inspired by the work of Duane Michals. His ability to shift ones perspective through the lens greatly moved her to experiment with her own ideas. He made her realize that reality is not always what you see in front of you but what you see in your mind. Tanya Solonyka began to experiment with other mediums and now works primarily in pastels and oil.

@jdg_custom

Toronto based artist, Jacqueline de Grave, a recent History graduate from Ryerson University where she focused on Museum Management and Curation. Although she has always loved to make and share her art, it is only in recent years that she began experimenting with new mediums and subject matter. She has developed a style that is her own. Today she is the founder, lead illustrator and designer for JDG Custom.

Her inspiration and love for the craft is owed to the generations of incredibly artistic women in her family. Her mother, aunts and grandmother have influenced and shaped her creativity and ultimately pushed her to be the best artist she could be.

Her complete collection of work consists of original drawings, prints, paintings and apparel. While she may at times practice sketching and painting, she first and foremost enjoys adding her own spin of bright colors and bold abstraction to portraiture celebrating the beautiful complexity of the human face, food, still life and countless other subjects in a digital medium.

@charliforrester

Charli is a self-taught artist, aside from lessons in school. During a period of insomnia in September 2017, Charli turned to drawing and eventually painting as a way to keep her mind occupied and try to make sense of the situation.

Charli is heavily influenced by artists who create emotional artwork and intimate portraits of their subjects, trying to reach behind the mask to find the person hiding beneath. She is also inspired by self-portrait artists including Frida Kahlo and Vincent Van Gogh.

@tarynmm

Taryn Mooradian is a Canadian-Armenian-British painter and installation artist who lives and works in Toronto, Ontario. She takes her artistic inspiration from everything ranging from impressionism to abstract impressionists such as Mark Rothko to large scale installation sensations, Christo and Jean-Claude. She has a thirst for colour and is an expert on gradient blending, which she often incorporates in her galactic beach landscapes. In integrating bright acrylics with sculptural plaster, she brings life and movement to her water and skies, creating a sense of calm and wonderment for the viewer.
Taryn’s installations also focus on bright colors and the science of light to transform spaces into an imaginal universe of fantasy and intrigue.
Taking inspiration from her favorite installation artists, James Turrell and Yayoi Kusama, Taryn transmutes spaces with aspects of her paintings, including gradients and light fraction as well as sculptural effects to engulf the passenger in a dimension of playfulness. Having studied fine arts and design at Macmaster University, Dundas Valley School of Art, Humber College and OCAD University, Taryn has a vast and wide range of training from classical drawing, painting & sculpture to interior and graphic design. She has found herself often exploring new ways to express her creativity, although cherishing the mastery of classical training. She believes there is room for all types of creative expression and wishes to spread the joy she has in the creative process with the joy her audience has in the absorption process of
her visual work. Taryn has had one solo show and has been part of several group shows as well as private commissions. She also recently created a massive installation for an international fashion company’s world class flagship event in Toronto and is excited to reach an international audience with her up-lifting and spirited work.

@thebiginthesmall

Seb Duke is a self-taught fine art photographer based out of Toronto specializing in bubble photography. Blending a variety of different types of liquids together, he then takes photographs the bubbly billowing results with a macro lens.

Every day in his studio, he attempts to push back the boundaries of artistic macro photography. His colorful abstract work has been featured in many media outlets such as Business Insider, Diply, Craftsy, and the CBC while his prints embellish walls around the world, including high-profile clients and celebrities.