Piera Pugliese

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Piera is a landscape painter. She is an honours graduate from the Ontario College of Art 1992 and an award winning artist and arts advocate based in Toronto. She has shown in group exhibitions in public and private galleries, and solo exhibitions in alternative exhibition venues.
Her fearless use of colour and her pursuit of wonder in urban landscapes includes cars and street lights with dappled light from blossoming trees making her work raw and compelling.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

I fell in love with landscape painting in the Algoma forests north of Lake Superior in 1992, my graduating year at Ontario College of Art. It was there that I learned that landscape painting reflects the Canadian social and environmental impact and identity. My paintings demonstrate the need to foster environmental conservancy after the countless natural disasters of the past few years.
I was in Prince Edward County during a residency in 2017 the first time I saw the Slab Creek Marsh on the Millennium Trail. I have returned several time since, to paint it over and over.
There is a street I drive pass regularly that each spring has an outrageous display of crabapple blossoms that has always elated me. As I started painting tree after glorious tree I discovered there was always a car in the way. This is how nature lives with us in the cities, next to the roads on small squares of green, punctuated by driveways.
I am dependant on nature for more than just air, my state of mind and soul are healed by nature. When I paint in nature my stress falls away, my joy multiplies and time disappears. Too bad I have to take a car to get there.
I am a Toronto painter painting Ontario landscapes.