Ottawa, OntarioBrenda Gale Warner
Brenda is the owner of Galerie 240. She is a magnet for the unusual and likes to give artists' with a unique "voice" a showcase for their talents.
Brenda Gale Warner: Bio
Brenda 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 childhood. Then, as she grew, while she was very successful in all of her academic pursuits, it was in the fields of Arts and Drama where she particularly excelled. She was compelled to exercise her creativity, and this took her down many different roads.
Primarily self-taught, Brenda also acquired her formal techniques - and honed her skills and talents - in artists' studios. One of her early career incarnations, in the 1980s, 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 learned 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 much personal success. Her art is her articulation 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 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 the United States and Europe. Calgary's Golden Mile shows two of her works and the City of Ottawa has just chosen three paintings to represent the Downtown Rideau Art and Culture District. She has shown in New York and Rome where she was recently chosen 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 Ottawas newest, hottest Contemporary Art Gallery - Galerie 240.
http://www.myartspace.com/brendagalewarner/
