Sonya was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and raised in small towns and farms in Northern Alberta. Iconic Canadian skies on endless fields pocked with deserted homesteads, developed her deep love for the abandoned. As a child she and her dog would journey along dirt roads and train tracks, fields and forests in search of treasure and adventure. Armed
with her faded rucksack, rope and hammer, Sonya would unearth jewels of old jars, rusty barb wire, wooden handles made smooth by toil and tractor parts buried like fossil bones in the dust of top soil. She discovered every abandoned farm was a place of memory. A history of forgotten lives of the people who once lived there.
It is her inspiration to honor them as artist and storyteller. To give sense, scope and remembrance to the lives of these ancestors and originators of the Canadian spirit. And to reclaim this spirit and transform it into plaster on canvas with acrylic, pastel and sculptural metal, bone and and/or wood. To bring new life to these relics. This dross of dreams.
If you look hard enough you will live the past. If you listen well enough you will hear the sting of the prairie wind blow through the fields of grain on a forgotten farm at the tip of the world. Sonya studied art and advertising in Winnipeg and began her career as a graphic artist in 1991. Over the years, her painting style has moved from a focus on expressionism painting to her current interest, mixed media.
Her newest work was literally created from a pilgrimage through the thick mountain forests and expansive beaches of the Northwest coast.
This work includes fragments from the logging and cabin era of the early 1900’s – chains, cables, spikes, bed springs, various metal containers, pieces of cars and other spent things.
with her faded rucksack, rope and hammer, Sonya would unearth jewels of old jars, rusty barb wire, wooden handles made smooth by toil and tractor parts buried like fossil bones in the dust of top soil. She discovered every abandoned farm was a place of memory. A history of forgotten lives of the people who once lived there.
It is her inspiration to honor them as artist and storyteller. To give sense, scope and remembrance to the lives of these ancestors and originators of the Canadian spirit. And to reclaim this spirit and transform it into plaster on canvas with acrylic, pastel and sculptural metal, bone and and/or wood. To bring new life to these relics. This dross of dreams.
If you look hard enough you will live the past. If you listen well enough you will hear the sting of the prairie wind blow through the fields of grain on a forgotten farm at the tip of the world. Sonya studied art and advertising in Winnipeg and began her career as a graphic artist in 1991. Over the years, her painting style has moved from a focus on expressionism painting to her current interest, mixed media.
Her newest work was literally created from a pilgrimage through the thick mountain forests and expansive beaches of the Northwest coast.
This work includes fragments from the logging and cabin era of the early 1900’s – chains, cables, spikes, bed springs, various metal containers, pieces of cars and other spent things.
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