Sandra Manzi was born and raised in Toronto, and currently resides in Hamilton. She received her Diploma in Fine Arts/Experimental Arts from the Ontario College of Art (now OCADU) in Toronto, and then received a B.A. in Fine Arts from the University of Guelph. She is a recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council, and has been a finalist for the Boynes Artist Award three times. Her paintings can be found in private collections throughout Canada, Europe, and the United States.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

As a figurative painter my main interest lies in exploring visual storytelling, and my goal is to create contemplative paintings which make us consider our present time in relation with that of our past. Using my own recomposed photographs, I create paintings which transform fragments of ordinary life into visual narratives conducive to contemplation and the viewer's imagination. My inspiration comes from many things including the Art History, film, and the mundane moments of my daily life. Here, disparate scenes are juxtaposed or layered to form larger narratives that invite the viewers personal interpretation and to provoke reflection.
My process involves layering images to express how transient and ephemeral experiences can be. I will combine two or three of these moments together as a way of connecting them to replicate my memories of that time and as a metaphor to how memories fade and blend together. This way of painting also allows me to work within the genre of Realism while also transcending it by creating compositions that embody fragments of a reality made up of different moments and places.
My latest body of work is inspired by the Old Masters. By blending parts of Old Master works and other elements from the canon of art history with people from my own time, I wish to spark a dialogue between past and present; fact and fiction; tradition and technology. I especially like to compare the simple moments in life with the grand narratives of our past. Modern digital technology allows me to gather an enormous amount of visual information, often combining multiple photographs taken over different moments or under different conditions. In that sense, the finished painting often represents an experience rather than a single instant. It becomes a constructed reality that is ultimately more faithful to my memory of the place than any individual photograph could be.