Background
The daughter of Finnish immigrants, Wainio grew up in Sarnia, Ontario.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Carol Wainio
Edit ProfileEducation
She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and a Master of Fine Arts at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec.
Career
Her work, known for its rich, tactile complexity and monochrome colour palette, and has been exhibited in major art galleries in Canada, the United States., Europe and China. Wainio lives in Ottawa and is an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa. Wainio"s father, who had an interest in art, bought her first painting supplies and showed her how to use them.
Her paintings often reference a variety of sources from fairy tales, medieval manuscripts o the 2008 financial collapse.
Wainio"s canvases have been described by art critic Emily Falvey as "fairy-tale landscapes littered with the detritus of contemporary consumerism."
Wainio"s first solo exhibition took place at the Yarlow/Salzman Gallery, in Toronto, Ontario in 1982. In 1990, her painting "Aperto" was displayed in the Canadian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, in Venice, Italy.
In 2010, Wainio"s work was featured in a travelling exhibition, Carol Wainio: The Book, curated by Diana Nemiroff and organized and circulated by Carleton University Art Gallery. This exhibition Wainio"s interest in the evolution of fairy-tales, the art of the copyist, industrialization, and the narrative power of images.
lieutenant was on display at Carleton University Art Gallery (2010), the Varley Art Gallery (2011), the Kelowna Art Gallery (2013), the Dunlop Art Gallery (2013), the McIntosh Gallery (2013), and the Galerie de l"UQAM (2014).
Wainio"s large-scale canvases have also been exhibited in more than 40 museums and galleries, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Shanghai Art Museum in China and the Stedelijk Museum in the Netherlands. Her work can also be found in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and the Art Gallery of Ontario, among other institutions.
Achievements
-
Born
-
Nationality
Canadian
Awards
-
Wainio was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2004. She received the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2014 for her outstanding achievements in contemporary visual and media arts.
The Governor General's are a collection of awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, marking distinction in a number of academic, artistic and social fields.The Governor General's are a collection of awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, marking distinction in a number of academic, artistic and social fields.