Artist Biography
Artist Statement:I create artwork in response to my current surroundings, but the underlying theme is always the passage of time, memory, and family. In this vein, my work often acts as a visual diary for significant events in my life. My most recent body of work is a series of paintings that resemble abstracted landscapes. Originally from Northern Ontario, I find myself drawn back to the landscape of the North. As a third generation immigrant to Canada, I am fascinated by my family history of settling in and around Port Cunnington and Kirkland Lake ON, and how my ancestors mined and manipulated that land to survive. Painting this land is my way of communicating with them, forming a bond with those who came before me so I could be here today. Now, as I start my own family, I wonder what legacy or footprint I will leave behind on this land that I inhabit. Visually, it
is the Canadian Shield and sparsely treed terrain of the North that is informing this current body of work.
Biography
Born in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Tanya Cunnington now resides in Rama First Nation. In 2001, Tanya received her Associates Degree from the Ontario College of Art and Design, with a Major in Drawing and Painting, and was the recipient of the Eric Freifeld Award for Excellence in Figurative Art. She was also selected to take part in the Florence, Italy, off-campus studies program in her third year. In 2019, Tanya was awarded a Research and Creation Grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to do a one-month artist residency in Sointula BC. She was the recipient of the Cleeve Horne Purchase Award through the Orillia Museum of Art & History in 2018 and the 2015 John Hartman Award through the MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie. When she is not working on solo projects, Tanya is one half of the collaboration she created with her partner Bewabon Shilling entitled the “Birdbath Collaboration”. Her work has been included in Magenta Foundation’s publication of Carte Blanche Volume II-Painting, and reviewed in Canadian Art Magazine. Tanya also exhibited with the now defunct Loop Gallery in Toronto from 2007 - 2018 and has exhibited regionally at the MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie; be contemporary art gallery, Innisfil; the Orillia Museum of Art & History, Orillia and Quest Gallery, Midland.
Not only an artist, Tanya is also an accomplished curator, and entrepreneur. The Owner and Director of Lee Contemporary Art Gallery in Orillia from 2015 - 2020, Tanya is currently the Arts Programming Coordinator at the Orillia Museum of Art & History.
