Through a serendipitous union, artists Carol Binns-Wood, Alan Glicksman, Melissa Sherman and Mary Linda Tait have combined to present a vibrant body of work. They create engaging works rooted in colour, emotion and innate instinct. Using whimsy, nature's beauty and the kinship shared with humanity and animals, these four artists engage the viewer, connecting with the universal emotions that are evoked by the challenges, triumphs and experiences of life. The stories told with their paintings touch the places where we search for meaning and find connection.
Painted Stories: In Technicolour ran from June 1 - July 2.
Alan Glicksman
Throughout his long artistic career, Canadian painter Alan Glicksman has developed a highly expressive visual vocabulary to describe immediate instincts and raw states of being. While his sources in art range from Picasso to Jean Dubuffet and Paul Klee, his accomplishment has been hailed for its fresh, original approach to the old and enduring desire to visualize the human soul and psyche. Glicksman's highly praised works contain faux-naïf drawing and a powerful palette of spellbinding colors. Alan Glicksman studied at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto and in New York City, at the University of Toronto and at Guelph University. He lives with his wife, Suzanne, in Owen Sound, Ontario.
Lately I have been inspired by portrait paintings by great artists. Personalities and characteristics are expressed through each artist’s eye, and we each see them differently. When I view these representations of people who sat for an artist long ago, I bring them back to life with my own vision, which is very different from the original portrait. I guess it’s a form of reincarnation in paint with each person reinvented and recast in a new time.
Carol Binns-Wood
Carol Binns-Wood has been painting since she was a child growing up in Montreal. Making art and telling stories with images provided an outlet for expression and a release for the challenges of being human.
Carol moved to Toronto at 18 to continue her art studies at York University and Arts’ Sake. After 15 years of living, making and exhibiting there, she moved to Flesherton where she opened her fine crafts and art gallery, Local Colour. 34 years later, she continues to create and exhibit both in her own location and various other galleries.
The images that Carol paints are meant to engage the viewer with the stories of the subjects. Although they are of particular individuals, they are not so much portraits, as they are an attempt to capture a moment and a feeling.
Mary Linda Tait
Mary Linda Tait paints illustrative, colorful and nostalgic vignettes of Simcoe County, The Blue Mountains and Georgian Bay. She describers her style as “Naïve” or “Contemporary Folk”. Born and raised in Montreal, Mary Linda's work is greatly influenced by French-Canadian artists, especially those from the Charlevoix Region.
Mary Linda spent her adult life living and working in downtown Toronto. She was a national advertising sales representative for Toronto Life, Reader’s Digest, Canadian Living and Homemakers Magazine.
Mary Linda has had a lifelong passion for art and painting. She relocated to Collingwood in 2014. After volunteering at the Blue Mountain Foundation for The Arts, she was hired in 2016-2018 as the Manager of the BMFA Gift Gallery.
There she discovered that Georgian Bay had an abundance of very talented, gifted and established painters of "fine art" landscape. After a hiatus of 15 years, Mary Linda picked up her paints in 2018. She decided to choose a "different lane" from the traditional "fine art landscape", and created whimsical, colourful, and heartwarming depictions of the rural beauty surrounding her.
Mary Linda's paintings have sold and been exhibited at the BMFA in Collingwood, The Loft Gallery in Thornbury, The Museum of Art and History in Orillia, Quest Art Gallery in Midland and the Sidestreet Gallery in Wellington, PEC, as well as privately.
Melissa Sherman
I am a Visual Artist living in Vaughan, Ontario. Originally from New York, I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parson’s School of Design. After moving to Toronto in 1986, I worked for several clay and glass studios in the GTA, model and moldmaking for their mass production.
Eventually, I found myself at York University and graduated with a Bachelor of Education, specialty in Visual Arts and Special Education. I taught for the York Region School Board for over 20 years. Since retirement, I have focused back on my true love, creating art.
As an empty-nester, I have filled our home with dogs to keep the noise level up. Dogs in general have become the focus of my artwork for the past several years. am intrigued how “in the moment” they are, attuned to their surroundings through their heightened senses. Their strong loyalty to their humans, unconditional love and genuine excitement is a joy to experience each day. It is each of these traits that I hope to embed in the images I create. I hope you feel it too.
When I am not in the studio creating, I enjoy hiking with my husband and dogs, swimming, practicing yoga and facetime with my four children and grandson.