ABOUT THE ARTIST

Michelle Shook is a Toronto-based oil painter and ceramic artist. Her work can be found in private collections across North America and in Germany and Japan.  Shook’s paintings are also featured in several public spaces including Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital and the Toronto Hydro building.

“My goal as an artist is to try and touch people with the beauty I see every day in the world around me,” she says. While Shook has traveled, lived and worked in such diverse locales as Haiti, Guatemala, Guyana, Canada’s Maritimes and the Ottawa Valley, her latest work explores pockets of natural beauty in Toronto’s city scape. “Whether it is a stand of birch trees on Toronto Island or a hydro line reflecting in the Humber River at sunset, I find endless moments of beauty and grace in our urban landscape.”

Michelle Shook studied Fine Art and International Development at the University of Guelph. Her art career took off almost immediately upon graduating in 1998 with a large 7-painting public commission from her thesis show. This kicked off an incredibly productive decade resulting in Shook mounting several solo shows a year. Throughout this period, she also taught painting, drawing and held ‘art-as-therapy’ workshops for people with special needs, psychiatric survivors and dialysis patients. This work allowed her to combine her love of making art, with her passion for teaching and community building.

While continuing to do private commissions Shook paused from public exhibitions while her three children were preschoolers. “I never stopped painting while they were young, but stepping back from it a bit in order to dive fully into being a mother has deeply affected my current work and perspective,” she says.

This year, Shook is excited to return to regular exhibitions.  Colour theory has been the subject that intrigues Shook the most in her current explorations, developing an oil painting style that is infused with warmth and energy.

Shook embraces social media and posts regularly.  She keeps her followers engaged with interesting projects like her 30 Day Challenge, painting 30 paintings in 30 days. Sometimes she holds contests asking her followers to guess the theme of the painting she is working on and rewarding the winners with her art cards. She also shows paintings in progress, and glimpses of how she hangs a gallery show.

Her work is currently showing at the Oak Gallery in Port Dover, Ontario. She will also be a guest in the Perth Autumn Studio Tour near Ottawa this Fall.