Karen Martin-Sampson
born 1945 in Toronto Ontario - resides in Sayward BC
Karen Martin-Sampson began to draw as a small child while bedridden with illness for several years. In 1935 her family moved to Cleveland Ohio, where she eventually received her BFA at the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1968. Her MFA is from Syracuse University, 1985. Her main subject is the human face and form though she paints still lifes and nature. She also spent years as a professional Graphic Designer/Illustrator in Cleveland, Los Angeles, Toronto, and Rochester NY. Her teaching experience includes Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Brockport, Empire State College, and Cazenovia College in upstate New York. Among her many awards are the Brittani Faulkes award, Human Figure show in Vancouver; and winner of the Canadian Institute of Portrait Artists Award for Excellence in Oil Portraiture (2007). Karen exhibited in the Colored Pencil Society of America juried show in Detroit and shows at the Nan Miller Gallery in Rochester and Philadelphia; Peel Gallery in Brampton; RIT Faculty shows, Rochester, NY; Portrait Show invitational, Willoughby, Ohio; plus exhibitions in Cleveland and Los Angeles area. Her selected client list includes UNICEF; Revlon; Max Factor; Disney; Las Vegas Hilton; Film Design; Toronto Life; Homemaker's Digest; Holt, Rinehart & Winston Publishers; Dupont; Eastman Kodak; Xerox; Baush & Lomb; Time Warner; Childbirth Graphics; Little Palm Island Resort; North Beach Leather. Her artwork on leather apparel has been bought by clients including Elvis & Priscilla Presley, Rick Nelson, Cat Stevens and Stevie Wonder (who accepted a Grammy wearing her work). Finally Karen is also a sometimes fibre artist. She has been a weaver, silk painter, embroiderer, quilter, sewer, knitter, crocheter and costume designer. She has been featured in International Artist Magazine, April/May 2000 and The Best of Colored Pencil II.
http://www.karenmartinarts.ca
http://www.lyndiaterregallery.com/artists.html
http://www.portraitscanada.ca/Martink.htm

Linda Giles
born 1960 in Lethbridge, Alberta - resides in Sidney BC
Linda Giles has traveled extensively and lived and worked in the US. She worked in the medical field, both in Canada and the United States, for almost a decade before returning to college in 1999, where she took her practitioners degree in Holisitic medicine, contimuing to work in the medical field until 2004. Linda began painting in 1985, working also in porcelain and pottery. She was deeply influenced by Southwest native art, exhibiting in both Canada and the US and receiving many commissions during this period. Her sculptures can be found in the collections of both First Nations in BC as well as in a number of personal collections. With her paintings of interacting figures, her reputation is growing in the field. Recently, she has been approached by a number of reputable galleries across Canada, the US and Europe. Giles has, to date, exhibited at the A-Forest Gallery in New York City, the Ishida Taiseisya Gallery in Kyoto Japan, and throughout the lower mainland of British Columbia.
http:// www.lindagilesgallery.com
http://www.a-forestgallery.com
http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/linda-giles.html
http://www.artslant.com/ny/artists/show/75133-linda-giles

Aliza Souleyeva-Alexander
born 1977 in Kazakhstan - resides in Victoria BC
Aliza grew up in this former satellite of the Soviet Union, and her first memories were of enjoying fine art and music. Classically trained for 10 years at a school for gifted children, she followed in the family tradition of studying the violin. At 16, Aliza began studying visual arts. Graduating with a Master’s degree in Art and Textiles from the Kazakh State Academy of Art, Central Asia’s most renowned school of art, theater and cinema, she found much success in her home environment of Central Asia. As a woman from Kazakhstan and a new Canadian, she shows the mixture of many cultures that have been in Central Asia over thousands of years combined with her own perceptions. The historical influence is strongest with her choice of textiles. As many aboriginal cultures have done in the past, her people have used wool in all aspects of life, including art. Now married to a BC man and a Canadian citizen herself, Aliza has already hosted her first Canadian exhibition Art From Another Hemisphere in Winnipeg Manitoba, and has exhibited in Western and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the US, Calgary Alberta, Vancouver and Victoria BC. Since coming to Canada five years ago, Aliza has exhibited annually in Asana and Almaty in Kazakhstan. In 2010, she has been invited to show her work at the International exhibition AVISKAR- East meets West at the Birla Academy of Arts and Culture in Kolkata, India. Her work in private and public collections includes the Presidential Culture Centre of Republic of Kazakhstan, Astana Kazakhstan; ABN AMRO Bank, Almaty Kazakhstan; Texaco Bank Kazakhstan, Almaty, Kazakhstan; National Library of Kazakhstan, Almaty, Kazakhstan; and in Russia, Turkey, Switzerland, Netherlands, USA, Israel, UK, Kazakhstan, and Canada.
http://www.alizaart.com
http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/aliza-souleyevaalexander.html
http://www.artbreak.com/alizaart/works
http://www.tu.kz/cityproject.php?ch_id=11?=2
http://prescentreculture.kz/arch/vistavki/museum/index08.shtml
http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_south/peninsulanewsreview/entertainment/82074077.html

Judy McLaren
Resides in North Saanich, BC
After graduating from the Ontario College of Art in 1978 (OCAD), I worked as a staff artist at the Royal Ontario Museum, followed by a brief sojourn into children's book illustration. However, my primary focus has always been the painting of the figure, in portraiture and as a means of artistic expression. Although I have never been content with the repetition of a formula and have always pushed my own boundaries, it has taken years for me to truly listen to my own voice, to throw off convention and paint with abandon and joy. I am now painting as nature intended me to paint, exalting in the physical qualities of oil, playing with texture, line and colour, and encouraging the interplay between two and three-dimensionality. I encourage and appreciate the happy accident that occurs when paint and canvas meet and thrive on the raw and emotive energy of the physical act of artistic creation. It is the dichotomy of expression between my abstract and figurative work that motivates me most as one discipline nourishes and stimulates the other.
Exhibitions include group and solo shows, at the Main Street Gallery; Maltwood Art Museum and Gallery, University of Victoria; Fran Willis Gallery; Winchester Galleries Victoria; Barton Leir Gallery, Victoria; Prince Arthur Gallery, Toronto; 'Intimacy: The Human Image' Canadian Institute of Portrait Artists, West Vancouver; Sidney Fine Art Show (Juried, First Prize); and the Sooke Fine Art Juried Show.
http://www.judymclaren.com/
http://apaintersday.blogspot.com/
http://www.bcbooks.com/artists_studios.html
http://boucheratgallery.com/index.php?action=news_archives