About the Artist

Artist Statement ~ HOMME

“This painting will haunt my memories while warming my heart”

_{This comment, from Colin Mitchell, Editor at Standard Guide Advocate, captures the essence of my artistic aspirations. This unsettling dissonance provokes important conversations about perceptions of identity through a sociological façade.}

Rendered within the core of my work, media and contemporary culture define feminine notions of beauty, vulnerability and sexuality using the materiality of veiled imagery.

White Orchid is best described as a figurative still life. It is the first painting of a series where the focus will be contemporary men set within a visual narrative telling their story reflected through both the objects and the subject. Influenced directly from time I spent in Italy as a student and the work of Caravaggio, particularly his portraits of young men. Using chiaroscuro lighting, musical instruments, flowers, plants, fruit, vegetables and other pieces are added creating a still life reminiscent but the models are chosen for their unique individuality and sense of strength with no barriers of age, nationality or body type.

Working figuratively my work questions the status quo on perceptions of beauty through staging scenes, using models, props and lighting I utilize digital images as sketches to develop a hard copy to use for a visual reference for each painting. This series is unique as it if the first time I am ‘standardizing” the work through sized, frame and table which will make up the base of each piece.

BIO

Liana Russwurm was born in 1966 in Elmira, Ontario. After graduating OCAD University in 2007 she spent four years recuperating from a work place accident, which eventually led her to purchase an old church in Alvinston Ontario where she could focus primarily on painting. Her work has been displayed in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Italy and Ireland. Her art is owned in public and private collections across Canada.

She is best known for her ongoing series Dime Museum, The paintings Dance of the Dead (2008, oil on panel), The Judy (2012, oil on panel) and Americana (2013, oil on panel). Americana won Peoples Choice Award at the Judith and Norman ALIX Gallery 2013 Juried Art Show. Her painting Beak (2013, encaustic on panel) from her series Façade won best in the show at the First Annual Petrolia Playhouse Juried Art Show.

White Orchid (2018, oil on panel) was chosen as a part of the International Biennial Portrait Competition in 2019 at the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art in Wausau, Wisconsin. This painting is the first painting in the series she is currently working on for an exhibition called Homme, which with open at the Judith & Norman ALIX Art Gallery in the fall of 2022.

_{Liana Russwurm born in 1966, Ontario, Canada}

Education

2002 – 2007 OCAD University, Bachelor of Fine Arts, honours
2005 – 2006 OCAD University, Florence Program
1981 – 1984 Elmira District Secondary School

Solo Shows

2021 Judith & Norman ALIX Art Gallery, Sarnia ON
2017 Out Of The Tickle Trunk, Lawrence House Centre For The Arts, Sarnia ON
2015 Untitled, Blackwater, Sarnia ON
2015 Random Pieces, Rooted Bohemian, Petrolia ON
2014 Façade, Raw Symmetry, Sarnia ON
2013 Façade, Blackwater Café, Sarnia ON
2013 Façade, Lawrence House Centre For The Arts, Sarnia ON
2013 Façade, The Petrolia Playhouse, Petrolia ON
2012 Girlie, Rooted Bohemian, Petrolia ON
2008 Girlie, Engine Gallery, Toronto ON
2007 Girlie, WhipperSnapper Gallery, Toronto ON

Duo shows

2018 Memories Moments Imagined, Westland Gallery, London ON
2016 The Weird and the Wonderful, Westland Gallery, London ON
2016 Wonderland, Gallery In The Grove, Brights Grove ON

Group shows

2019 The International Biennial Portrait Competition 2019,
Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art, Wausau Wisconsin, US
2013 Judith and Norman ALIX Juried Art Show, Sarnia ON
2013 Thames Art Gallery Juried Art Show, Chatham ON
2013 First Annual Petrolia Playhouse Juried Art Show, Petrolia ON
2007 Broke Bastard Mounting, Toronto ON
Get It Together, Toronto ON
2005 Sleep is for Dead People, Toronto ON
Give It Up, Toronto, ON

Grants

2019 Lambton Creative County Fund
2019 Mid Career Visual Artist Creation Project Grant, Ontario Arts Council

Scholarships and Awards

2013 Best in the Show, First Annual Petrolia Playhouse Juried Art Show, Petrolia ON
2013 Peoples Choice Award, Judith and Norman ALIX Juried Art Show, Sarnia ON
2007 Mrs. W.O. Forsyth, OCAD University, Toronto ON
Donna Maclean Scholarship, OCAD University, Toronto ON
Duncan MacPherson Award of Excellence, OCAD University, Toronto ON
2005 Charles Magee Memorial Tuition Scholarship, OCAD University, Toronto ON

Collections

2004 Barndance Museum, Wingham ON

_{My work has been purchased for numerous private collections in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, the U.S. and Ireland}

Publications

2019 The Puppeteer, cover of Naming the Shadows, a collection of
short stories by author Sharon Berg, published by Porcupine Quill
2011 Hello, My Name Is…, image on page 83, Colour and Two-Dimensional Design, published by OCAD University
2010 Back in 5, cover of The Haloed Tree, a collection of poetry by Fred Cogswell, published by
Ronald P. Frye & Company

Teaching

2014 encaustic class at the Thames Art Gallery, Chatham ON
2014 Visiting Artists in Local Schools (VALS), grade 5/6 classes in
Sarnia/Lambton

Organizations

Founding member of The Arts Council of East Lambton (ACEL) in 2014 – helped to organize the 1^st Annual Art Social Day held in Watford ON. Celebrating their third year Art Social Day is an art and music festival that brings tourists and art lovers into Watford.

Founding member and current President of The Brooke-Alvinston Arts and Activity Group (BAAAG), which began in 2015. The group received a $10,000 grant from Lambton County’s Creative County Fund for programming, classes and bringing speakers into the small community of Alvinston. The group is working with the Municipality of Brooke-Alvinston to create a space on the top floor of the Municipal Office for holding event and classes. In 2015 the BAAAG held their 1^st Annual Alvinston Arts & Music Fest. The event has grown in the first 4 years from three bands playing music alongside 5 handmade vendors and one guest speaker (Talli Osborne speaking on bullying) to 2018’s festival with 20 vendors, one guest speaker (Lauren Crighten – struggles with mental health) and 5 bands and one main act with the main street closed down.

Media

_{https://www.theobserver.ca/news/local-news/local-painter-to-be-featured-in-u-s-gallery-next-month}

_{https://lfpress.com/entertainment/local-arts/stories-memories-explored-in-new-art-show}

_{http://thesarniajournal.ca/new-exhibition-explores-unsettling-imagery-of-childhood/}

_{http://www.sarniathisweek.com/2016/03/22/local-artists-unveil-a-wonderland-in-brights-grove}

_{https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156736191065010&set=a.10150291861170010.552014.656445009&type=3&theater}

_{http://www.theobserver.ca/2015/03/20/liana-russwurm-came-to-lambton-to-paint}

_{http://petrolialambtonindependent.ca/2015/01/28/5345/}

_{http://www.petroliatopic.com/2013/06/25/painter-of-unusual-ladies-featured-at-art-gallery}

_{http://travellingprofessor.blogspot.ca/2013/12/canadian-contemporary-art-3-russwurm.html}

_{https://modemworld.me/2013/12/23/faces-where-the-facade-reveals/}

_{http://quanlavender.blogspot.ca/2013/12/opening-today-facade.html}

_{http://www.blogto.com/arts/2008/07/femininity_confused/}