BIOGRAPHY - MARY GUILLAUME
I have drawn and painted since childhood in Sault Ste. Marie, and have worked in watercolour, oils, acrylics, pen and ink and pastels. After 30 years in Montreal where I had the opportunity to study sketch, life studies and art appreciation at McGill University’s adult classes, we retired to St. Jacobs in 1997.
Since moving back to Ontario, I have studied with many local artists and have attended workshops with some the leading artists and teachers in Ontario (Art Cunanan, Margaret Roseman, Pauline Holancin, Jake Mol, Kai Liis McKinnis, Linda Kemp and many others) I am a member of the Central Ontario Art Association, the Waterloo Community Art Centre, the Guelph Creative Arts Association and KWSA (the Kitchener-Waterloo Society of Artists). I am also a founding member of Colour Wheel, a group of Waterloo Region artists who paint and exhibit together.
I have exhibited at the Waterloo Community Art Centre’s annual shows for the past several years, and in 2002, my painting River Shadows was accepted by the jury to tour with the Grand River Exhibition throughout southern Ontario, and the following year my painting ‘Safe Home’ was again accepted to tour with the other juried pieces in southern Ontario.
In the past months, I have returned to working in Acrylics and have begun to explore the new medium of Water mixable Oils. I continue to work in Watercolour, Acrylic and Pen and Wash. My paintings and ink sketches hang in private collections in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, the U.S.A and France.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
I am drawn to paint light in its many aspects and moods, and it is this that attracts my eye and propels me to capture a brief moment in paint.Deep values and strong colours work for me in watercolour, a medium that I find clean and bright and rich, as well as in the new water-miscible oils. I continue to work in pen and wash and in acrylic. My work is representational and I like to work in different styles, sometimes loose and impressionistic, sometimes more detailed. I am inclined to allow my style to follow my mood and in this way explore the range that can be used to describe and express the subject. Above all, I resist being boxed in by rules and prefer to experiment to achieve a result that comes close to my initial emotional response.
Regardless of the medium or style, my goal is basically two-fold; to explore and enjoy the creative process, and to capture a mood, an emotional response or a striking visual image that speaks to the viewer’s experience as well as describing and recalling my own.