| ARTIST BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | Determined to create art despite the discouragement of her practical-minded mother, artist Sonja Billard drew inspiration from a formative experience at Saskatoon’s Mendel Art Gallery, where she witnessed the work of European Masters, Group of Seven artists, and contemporary art and installations by artists from across Saskatchewan and Canada. Following her mother’s advice to get a career “to fall back on,” Billard studied at the University of Saskatchewan to become a physical therapist, but continued creating art and participating in art clubs, camps, and workshops. She finally fulfilled her dream by enrolling in art classes at the Alberta College of Art + Design (1991) and attending workshops with artists Edward Epp, Dave Moore, and Laurel Cormack. She eventually received her BFA with Distinction from the Alberta College + Art and Design in 2005.
Describing her art, Billard says that it is “the emotional influence of the subject on me that I strive to reveal in the painting…. Plants—trees, grasses, flowers—provide energy in my paintings either from memory or most powerfully when painting on location. That is when I get and give the greatest joy to my art.”
Billard has participated in many group exhibitions in Calgary, including at the Muttart Public Art Gallery (later the Art Gallery of Calgary), Esso Plaza, the Gourmet Lounge of the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, and Gulf Canada Gallery (where she also mounted a solo exhibition); as well, Billard contributed to a group exhibition at the Devonian Gardens in Calgary.
Billard’s works live in the collection of the Alberta Advisory Council on Women’s Issues and in private collections across Canada and England. She currently lives in Nanaimo, BC where she volunteers for the Nanaimo Arts Council and exhibits her work at the Council Art Gallery, the Port Theatre, Nanaimo Art Walk, and the Waterfront Gallery in Ladysmith, B.C. (where she also volunteers). |