PAINTING BIO

Jill Sharpe is a Vancouver based media artist who divides her time between painting and film-making.  She began painting in oil at the age of 13 and continued up until her 20’s.   Her exploration of image for the next two decades was largely through film where she created an internationally showcased body of work.  In 2001 what began as a month vacation became a 3 year painting retreat in Oaxaca Mexico – reawakening her passion for the medium.   There she joined the Mexican painting collective Galeria 910 (then adjoined to Francisco Toledo’s print making studio).  Since her return to Canada in 2004, she has been fortunate to pursue her painting studies under the mentorship of several accomplished painters.  Her latest film BONE WIND FIRE was screened at the Musee Des Beaux Arts in Montreal and is currently on tour in Art Museums in North America and Europe.  

Sharpe started to show internationally in 2012 when she was invited to present paintings from her Illuminata Series at the Solas Art Festival in Glasgow Scotland.  Her newest series in oil BONE WIND FIRE (inspired by the film of the same name) was also invited that year for a 2 month solo show at The Emily Carr House in Victoria British Columbia and a 1 month solo show at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum's Education Annex in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Her works are inspired from the intricate beauty she sees in nature and the invisible energy at work beneath them.    

GALLERY EXHIBITS - PAINTING

2002            Galeria 910, Group Show, Oaxaca Mexico

2003            Casa del Angel, Group Show, Oaxaca, Mexico                      

2012            Solas Art Festival,  Selected Works - Illuminata,, series Glasgow/Biggar Scotland

2012            Emily Carr House, 2 month Solo Show, BONE WIND FIRE series, Victoria BC

2012            Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Education Annex,1 month solo show, BONE WIND FIRE series 

                    Santa Fe, NM 

2013            Slide Presentation and Talk, McMichael Art Gallery, Kleinburg, Ontario

2013            Solo Show, Montrerrey Mexico, CONARTE (dates TBC) - sponsored by The Mexican Consulate

GALLERY EXHIBITS -  FILM

 2003           CultureJam:

                    Sala Rekalde, Bilbao Spain – 3 month group show (with Cindy Sherman)

 2012           Bone Wind Fire:

                    Musee des beaux arts, Montreal

                    Sonoma Valley Art Museum, Sonoma, California

                    Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Quebec City

                    Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

                    National Gallery of Art, Washington

2013            McMichael Gallery, Kleinburg, Ontario

                    Le Fesnoy - Studio National des Arts Contemporains,Tourcoing, France

VISUAL ARTS TRAINING:

1988            BA ARTS, Honors Role, Glendon College - York University, Toronto

1999            Atlin School of Art, “Idea & the Creative Process”, Atlin, BC

2001-04       Galeria 910, painting collective, Oaxaca, Mexico

2005            Private Painting Sessions with landscape painter Liliana Kleiner, Vancouver

2005-08       Emily Carr University, painting Certificate courses (P/T), Vancouver

2006            Dutch Master Techniques, studio sessions with Joss Van De Ven, Brittany, France

2007            Primal Painting 1, with Japanese abstract painter Meera, Pune, India

2008            Primal Painting 2, with Japanese abstract painter Meera, Ibiza Spain

2009             Studio sessions with portrait painter Jay Snetchko, Vancouver, BC

2008/09/12   Private mentorship with landscape painter Sheri Bakes, Vancouver

*see Film Bio for complete body of work & training in film