Based in London, Ontario, Carol Wainio is one of Canada's most accomplished painters of her generation. Wainio was born in Sarnia, Ontario in 1955, but has lived throughout the country, studying at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and studying and teaching at Concordia University in Montréal.
The success of Wainio's career began in the early eighties during a resurgence in painting. Although she was celebrated among many other marked painters, Wainio's work remained distinct from that of her peers. Her subtle palette and heavy application of paint are reminiscent of early abstract painting, but she undermines this direct association with non-representational painting by inserting small and disjunct scenes, such as landscapes with figures, into her painting's overall composition. Wainio references the historical development of painting by colliding various styles and modes of painting into one canvas. Even with her rigorous engagement with the history of painting, her work escapes being purely academic. the artist's unexpected placement of floating objects and ambiguous text reflect her personal interests and desire. She uses a personal vocabulary that adds an unexpected layer onto an already rich canvas.
A select exhibition of Wainio's work will fill both of Oakville Galleries' exhibition sites. Twenty-one paintings drawn from her extensive body of work offer a considered look at the artist's production from 1989 to the present. This critical exhibition, Carol Wainio: Contemporary Registers, was curated by Michèle Thériault and was first produced for Musée d'art de Joliette. Thériault brings a series of works together that point out Wainio's particular mode of 'visual thinking' by highlighting repetitive motifs, such as the spinning disc or the book, and an irregular play with narrative. Text, figures, landscapes and floating objects merge in pictorial tales that continuously evade static readings.
In conjunction with Carol Wainio: Contemporary Registers, an exhibition catalogue with an introduction and essay by Michèle Thériault will be available at Oakville Galleries. This publication was produced by Musée d'art de Joliette.
Curated by Michèle Thériault
An exhibition organized and circulated by Musée d'art de Joliette
