| ARTIST BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | Tricia Firmaniuk is an abstract painter with a strong formal interest in the elementary aspects of painting: line, colour, form, surface and “the endless relationship between these elements.” She refers to the language of modernist high art, but in her canvas the results are playful. In recent mixed media canvases achieved with acrylic, oil, oil stick, spray paint and dry pigment applied freely, the artist writes about being “after a clunkiness, even awkwardness, a history of failures concealed, or not, and compromised solutions.” At times this means letting a bold meandering line loose on the canvas or the developing a cartoonish form. Working in a semi-figurative and expressive way, she cites the influences of Phillip Guston and the more contemporary painting of Thomas Nozkowski, Amy Sillman and Tal R.
Born and raised in Edmonton, Firmaniuk earned from the University of Alberta a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and drawing with Distinction (2005). It was there that her interest in formalism was nurtured by modernist teachers and colleagues. She has ten years of experience working at Peter Robertson Gallery (Edmonton, AB) and currently works in virtual design. As an emerging artist, Firmaniuk organized and participated in life drawing courses in Jasper, AB (1999 – 2000) and was a founding member of J.A.G. (Jasper Artist’s Guild). |