Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world.
As part of ArtworxTO, WATERMARKED is an experimental mural project that allowed artists and community members of all ages and abilities to experiment with rain-activated paint while co-creating a temporary public artwork at the Port Union Village Common Park in Scarborough.
This mural responds to the excitement and joy the Beach Community shared about the opening of a new space to play, build new memories together and see a splash of colour in an urban landscape. These were shared during 16 hours of art-based programming and engagement with children and youth.
Tanya Pixie Johnson created this mural on the back of the Community Futures building for the 2020 Nelson International Mural Festival.
“It is my intention that this reference will create stylistic dialogue with other Art Deco design and architectural features in the city. The composition includes two cat-like sentinels and the suggestion of arches or doorways, water and tree or plant-like forms
These ideas are stylized to meet the design parameters proposed by the client.”
Created from the 2021 Nelson International Mural Festival on the Cedar Street retaining wall.
“Kai Cabödyna’s practice is rooted within returning to natural rhythms, dethroning patriarchal conditioning, cultivating community, exploring collaborative projects and evolving cultural paradigms. Overlapping and communicating through various mediums allows for his eclectic and adaptable process to reflect the way nature orchestrates it’s patterns, rhythms and flows.
Toronto-based artist Steph Payne created this mural for the 2021 Nelson International Mural Festival behind the Bigby Place building, near Superior Lighting and Bath.
“Steph Payne is a Venezuelan-Canadian Artist, Designer, & Creative Director with a diverse career arc in visual arts, mural production and experiential space design.”
PJ Gilhuly created “Raven Haven” for the 2021 Nelson International Mural Festival in the first-floor stairwell of the parkade.
“At the beginning of the ’90s, Ankh started doing graffiti on the walls of his beautiful native city of Grenoble, nestled at the foot of the Alps.
It is this mode of expression that led him to the benches of a graphic school.
Mastering these newfound institutional techniques, he gradually transposed his pictorial and graphic work to painting, without ever breaking the link to the graffiti culture that motivated this progression.”
“This mural is inspired by Toronto, Canada and Mother Nature. On the front there is a mountain in the shape of Mother Nature’s face, she is smiling and resting peacefully with flowers and trees all over her. Her hair wraps to the right side, transforming into a flow of lines, swirls and more flowers. Toronto’s famous white squirrel is there as well. She is munching on an acorn and being as cute as she always is. Summer scenario on the front is changing into Autumn, as the mural wraps to the left. There are maple and oak leafs flying through the sky. It moves into a night, where floral design frames a special guest, Racoonie. He is startled to be caught playing with a little yellow duckie, a reference to the World’s largest rubber duck’s appearance in Toronto, 2017. This is a little tribute to it, since it wasn’t able to return to Toronto this year.”
Located on the northeast corner of College and Elizabeth Streets, ‘March of the Suffragettes’ displays five figures in Victorian-era dresses and hats with sashes across their outfits. On the approach to Women’s College Hospital, on a street also called Dr. Emily Stowe Way, this Signal Box reminds passers-by of the events related to the writing and enacting of bills, acts and other legal pathways in the ongoing fight for gender equality in this country, fought by many, notably the aforementioned Dr. Stowe, an icon in Canada’s suffrage movement. This signal box reminds us, that by not being dedicated just to Dr. Stowe but to the actions of the many, that history making events occur through the actions of the many, not the one.
‘Salmon Run’ is a Bell Box located in Sunnylea Park in Etobicoke. Depicting nineteen abstractly-painted salmon that swim toward the top of the Box, the artist captures the annual ‘salmon run,’ where between September to November, adult salmon swim from the ocean to freshwater, against currents and ‘climb’ upstream to begin the salmon lifecycle again.
This is my most recent community/public mural. I was happy to participate in the @bellboxmurals program in Etobicoke. My theme was local flora and fauna. It was a joy to create. I finished at a tough lighting time of day with this speckled light through the trees but since I don’t know when I’ll be back in Etobicoke these are the best pics I have for now. Pastels for life.
An interactive ground mural that features a pattern map inspired by an aerial map of park trails and waterways in the Midtown Yonge area–from Sherwood Park, to Oriole, and the Beltline, as well as three lines connecting native plants to their respective pollinators.
Created as a part of the Midtown Yonge BIA Connects! Through Community Animation and Art program.
Up in the bright blue sky, gliding carefree with the warm wind, there they are! Mysterious jellyfish and colourful butterflies, seahorses and stars, elegant frigates sailing the marshmallow clouds, kites shaped like diamonds and other ones arched like the bird wing… Where do they come from, and where are they going to?
Artist’s Statement: “I created this project for Sentier Cultural in Gatineau, QC. The mural focused on paying tribute to the significance of women in the textile industry and the working class neighborhood that still exists in that sector of old Hull today.”
Artist’s Statement: “This multi-wall mural was painted in Nelson, BC for the Nelson International Mural Festival. Entitled ‘Soul Terrain’, this was my ode to the mountains of British Colombia seen through my filter as an artist, exploring a semi-traditional landscape scene with transparency and vivid color work.”
Located in Bell Manor Park’s southwestern field, this large mural (when viewed from left to right) displays a tri-toned set of leaves and a geometric butterfly, leading to the words ‘Bell Manor Park’ in Peru’s unique multi-coloured, block-letter styling.
This pink-background Bell Box features geometric and abstract shapes to liven up the boulevard of 421 Markham. This design expands across the unique double-Bell Box configuration at this intersection, featuring one large Bell Box immediately next to a smaller, rectangular signal box-size structure. Rubik’s cubes, mono-colour 3-D shapes and abstract shapes fly over green triangles and blue streaks, which give the appearance of a geometric forest resting on the bottom of both structures that make up this Bell Box.
My piece entitled “Musical Healing” [May 2, 2022] is inspired by the undying magic of music and its good vibrations – it heals the soul in so many ways.
Commissioned to complete a planter mural in Kensington Market, Toronto by the Kensington Market BIA. Thank you for the opportunity to beautify the community and get an early start on the public art season!
Futura (2021) a vibrant and innovative mural activation by Andre Kan serves as a significant landmark at The Assembly Park Studios in the City of Vaughan. His geometric shapes build upon one another creating a sense of interconnection, and reminding us how we are all connected in this world. Through the significance of cause and effect, this energetic, multilayered landscape is his abstract interpretation of the city’s unique future – a high-spirited dynamic blueprint of various forms coming together. Unified, bold, and in harmony, this architectural piece depicts a number of structural components and signifies the importance of creating a foundation that can be built beyond itself.
A part of the StreetARToronto Outside the Box Program 2021.
Where We Find our Roots celebrates the incredible beauty of the Don River and its surrounding waterways–paying tribute to the traditional keepers of the land, its current residents, and its potential futures.
The mural is painted in a trick-of-the-eye abstract style where from up close it appears to be just blocks of colours but from a far the illusion of depth and texture is created.
Playing around a concept powered by creativity, imagination, diversity, and exploration, just some of the many aspects that schools encompass. The mural is painted in an abstract style where a bold, captivating mural is created through an array of hidden imagery with meaning to be found. The abstract style allows for a unique experience as everyone’s eye and mind interpretates colours, forms, and shapes differently.
Sarah Alinia Ziazi’s signal box visualizes feminine energy and beauty through the juxtaposition of a floral background.
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