Artist Bio
My artistic development started over 20 years ago in Poland, through the Commercial Art College and Sacred Art College (Christian Symbolism in Visual Arts). In 1987, along with my family, I became a political refugee escaping from the regime of Communism. At first, we resided in Greece, where we went through the two years legal process of being permitted to enter Canada. In Canada, I became a mother for a second time, giving birth to another wonderful daughter while my husband started to work professionally as mechanical engineer. While taking care of my family, I continued to create and had numerous exhibitions in the Ontario region. I also wrote, co-produced and co-directed a few multi-media performances, based on visual and performing arts, which involved multicultural artists and audiences.
In 1996, we relocated to the USA, where we resided for nearly five years. While in Colorado, I strengthened my education and graduated with Magna Cum Laude from the University of Colorado Fine Arts, Studio Arts program. I also had successful individual art shows at the Canaan Gallery in Denver.
After my return to Canada, in 2001, I established ArtVeritas Visual Arts Studio where I continued to create and offer art programs to people of all ages. In 2004, I attended York University for the full time Teachers College program and I earned a bachelor degree in Education, specializing in Visual Arts and Social Sciences. After that, I was teaching in several international schools in Ontario, where I developed the visual arts departments and programs for grades 9-12. I also had the opportunity to teach a Visual Arts summer program in Italy to high school students. Throughout this time I was continuously creating my own works and was featured in several art galleries throughout Ontario and also had several solo art exhibitions throughout the years.
In 2011, my husband died unexpectedly during our trip to Greece, where I was invited to a sponsored, four weeks long Painters Symposium, to paint along with eleven European artists. This sudden tragedy was life changing and temporarily put on hold my artistic plans and activities.
Eventually, I moved to Niagara region, was remarried and reestablished my ArtVeritas Visual Arts Studio in Niagara-On-The-Lake. I continue to offer workshops for children, youth and adults in my studio and focus on creating original pieces of fine art in my studio. I have had solo shows in several local galleries and venues and continue to sell my work to clients both in Canada and internationally for both personal and corporate spaces.
I encourage you to also look at my profile on Artavita which provides greater details of each of my series:
https://artavita.com/artists/7909-beata-o-connell
or LinkedIN for my professional profile: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/beata-o-connell-75360b17a
Sincerely,
Beata O'Connell
.jpg)