BRENDA GALE WARNER
Brenda Gale Warner believes she was ‘literally’ born an artist. From her beginnings in Hamilton, Ontario art has always been her preferred ‘voice’. In fact, it is the art and drawing that Brenda vividly recalls from her time in kindergarten. Then, as she grew, while she was very successful in all of her academic pursuits, it is in the fields of Arts and Drama where she particularly excelled.
Primarily a ‘self-taught’ artist, Brenda also acquired her formal techniques - and honed her skills and talents - in artists’ studios. One of her early career incarnations, in the 1980’s, was in interior and furniture design in an exclusive design gallery in Toronto. But it was her involvement with the Art Gallery of Ontario - as a docent in the Elementary Education Department - where she again learnt to see the world through the eyes of a ‘child’, which Brenda found both rewarding and enlightening.
“I describe my art as Simple,” explained Brenda, “I try to approach complex ideas and emotions and make them easier to understand and for me, painting has always been simpler than verbalizing these expressions.”
Brenda’s life has been one full of triumph and tragedy - of motion and emotion. She has suffered great personal losses and achieved high personal successes. Her art is her articulations of these milestones. But, it was when she began to work with large canvases that she discovered Expressionism and found another ‘voice’ for her thoughts and feelings. Brenda’s paintings encapsulate the full palette and tactile spectrum: from monochromatic to colourful, from textural to reflective and from sparse to compounded and complex.
Brenda has travelled throughout Europe and lived across Canada. However, it was her time in Manitoba - with its wide-open spaces, wildlife and natural features that opened up Brenda to the art of photography. Working in sepia and black and white she likes to get ‘up close and personal’ to her subjects and ‘capture’ their vitality.
“I can be inspired by a word, a phrase, a place – a change in my life. I just live and breathe wherever I am – and sometimes I just need to put it on canvas or catch it with my lens” described Brenda.
Brenda’s works can be found in Corporate, Public and Private collections across Canada - including on Calgary’s ‘Golden Mile’ where she recently won a City of Calgary Transit Authority Competition. She has shown in New York and Rome – where she just won one of the Top ten Exquisite Expressionists, Women who Paint by Artrom Gallery.
Now residing in Ottawa where her palette has come ‘alive’ she has just opened Ottawa’s newest Contemporary Art Gallery Galerie 240.
