Location: Canada
Sandra Altwerger is a Canadian artist living and working in Toronto. She studied at the Ontario College of Art (as it was then known), graduating in 1963. Afterwards she studied at the Instituto Allende, in Mexico and received her Master of Fine Arts Degree in 1966. In 1975 she began teaching at OCA and continued there (now OCAD University) as an associate professor until retirement in 2013.
Sandra began exhibiting her work, first at Gallery Moos in Toronto and then at Mira Goddard gallery since 1980. Her work is represented in over 60 public and corporate collections including the Canada Council Art Bank, the Toronto Dominion Bank, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Ernst and Young, the University of Lethbridge and the Agnes Etherington Art Center.
Past exhibitions include solo and group exhibits in Canada in Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Guelph, Kingston and Brantford Ontario as well as exhibits in the USA in Chicago, the Albright Knox Gallery in Buffalo, Michigan, Indiana, Virginia, The Bronx Museum, New York, She has also exhibited in Europe in England at Oxford University and Finland at the Alvar Alto museum.
Awards have been from the Canada Council for the Arts; Ontario Arts Council Grants and several Purchase Awards.
View the works of Sandra Altwerger at
sandraaltwerger.com
My art is a continually evolving exploration of paint and application. By focusing on the sensuousness of paint itself, I am able to tell a story about whatever is going on. I don’t consciously turn off the cerebral part of my brain when I am starting to paint, but at the same time I don’t worry if it is making sense or hanging together. That is the elusive and complex process of painting. By making art I can use an intelligence that lies underneath words but can rely on itself. I can’t limit the influences that come into my work as my painting is informed by everything around me. Somehow the viewer will get a sense of whatever is going on and use their own logic to put together a story and interpret what I do. The communication is buried in the surface. Finishing a painting involves believing in the forms enough so that they begin to have the same presence that objects and people have in life.
“Hot Curry Sweet”
“Glacier Melt”
“Pale Afternoon”
“Pad Thai”
“Listening to Whales”
“Shimm”
