MEET THE ARTISTS

Laura finds inspiration in the lost and found in her life.

Old papers, magazines, maps and ephemera are incorporated into her collage work in ever-changing ways while textiles, notions and found object collections find their way into her mixed media pieces.

Themes of nature, the environment, community and our world as a whole are a continuous thread woven throughout her body of work.

Laura is an emerging artist living and creating in Port Hope Ontario.

An Emerging Visual Artist from Port Hope, Ontario. Wendy has been a Painter since 1997, and has recently started Exhibiting her work. She is intoxicated by the Canadian Landscape, Floral and Animals. Wendy mainly paints these three, almost exclusively with Acrylic on Canvas. Wendy breaks images down into colours and shapes with a vivid use of lines. Wendy’s Paintings are created using either Photos taken by herself or someone she personally knows. Sometimes it takes a couple photos to create a scene. Being Canadian is important to her and she feels it is reflected in her one of a kind paintings.

Sean Carthew has a BFA in Acting from the University of Windsor. He went on to work professionally as an actor for over 15 years. For the past 10 years Sean has been writing, creating, directing and producing well over 250 shows in the Port Hope area. Sean just completed teaching an acting course at TMU and has a short play coming to the Port Hope Arts Festival in August.

Lee Higginson is an emerging Port Hope artist with a visual arts practice centred around a love of community, connection and environment. She is also an arts facilitator under the identity of Fluke Craft.

Through the use of photography, found object assemblage and other mixed media, Lee’s work explores concepts of healing, joy and commemoration. Paramount to her practice is the notion that the process of art creation is every bit as important as the final product. She believes that every person has an equal right to enjoy, contribute and participate within it.

Lee lives and works in Port Hope with her two teen boys, one of whom lives with autism.

Jay Dart is a drawist and designer who lives and draws with his family in Ashburn, Ontario. Over more than a decade, he has created approximately 300 pieces for his ongoing Yawnder series which consists primarily of drawings but also includes mixed-media works, installations, animated videos and bookworks. His most recent solo exhibition, Amongst the Yawns & Dust, at the Art Gallery of Northumberland in the Spring of 2023 featured a retrospective of works from this series that depict his wanderers within the vast landscapes in the Yawnder region and expand on his narrative that attempts to elucidate creative experiences. Dart continues to exhibit his work in galleries across Canada including an upcoming show at Gallery Jones in Vancouver. He is the recipient of multiple grants and honours and his work has been featured on CBC radio and television, including a profile on The Exhibitionists. Dart also teaches drawing and graphic design at Durham College and Seneca College.

Distance:Existence
https://vimeo.com/649745492

www.jaydart.ca
Instagram @jaydart

Kate Hessin is an emerging multimedia artist, who lives and works in Port Hope, Ontario. Kate’s work moves fluidly from sculpture to works on paper. She is interested in exploring the ways in which society’s deeply held expectations for women manifest themselves into the lives of modern mothers. Kate playfully uses a folkloric whimsy and humour to create an inviting space for unpacking the darker aspects of motherhood – from postpartum anxiety to breastfeeding struggles.

www.katehessin.com
@katehessin

Brian Hoad is a visual artist originally from Port Hope. After receiving training as Canadian artist David Blackwood’s studio assistant, he completed academic training in studio art at Queen’s University and University of Regina. Maintaining his studio in Kingston, ON, Hoad is the Technician Supervisor and an Adjunct Instructor at the Queen’s University Fine Art (Visual Art) Program.

Hoad’s artwork responds to his experience coming-of-age in Ontario, alongside an interest in how people have connected with wilderness spaces throughout history. Technically intrigued by historic processes applied in contemporary contexts, printmaking has had the greatest influence on his practice. Most recently, Hoad began exploring the cyanotype process during overlapping residencies at Critical Mass (Port Hope) and Modern Fuel & Union Gallery (Kingston). His goal has been to explore and redirect a pre-existing interest in working en plein air into a more holistic, non-representational format.

brianhoad.ca
@brianhoad

Chrissy Poitras is a multidisciplinary artist, an arts educator and co-owner and founder of Spark Box Studio- an arts organisation based in Prince Edward County. She has taught at OCAD U and Loyalist College in their Fine Art programs and is a graduate from the Queen’s University Bachelor of Fine Art Studio program.

Her work spans traditional painting and printmaking, mural work, public installation, resource sharing and collaborative exchange. Themes of her work centre around ideas of place – whether that be through the invention of abstracted environments, creating augmented reality or highlighting the beauty of our natural landscape.

Her solo work has recently been featured in the Mount Sinai 100 exhibition at the AGO and the Superradiance exhibition held at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre. Her mural work can be seen throughout Prince Edward County, Peterborough and in private homes in Ontario.

sparkboxstudio.com
patreon.com/sparkboxstudio
@sparkboxstudio