About

Biography

Shana Patry is a visual artist from Lac-St-Jean (L’Ascension-de-Notre-Seigneur), QC, Canada who lives and works in Saguenay (QC).

Supported by her family from a young age, she took oil painting classes between the ages of 8 and 12. After selecting all the art options in high school, she began her studies in Visual Arts at Cégep de Jonquière in 2013. Meanwhile, she started selling her works online through social media, participating in symposiums and craft fairs. She graduated in January 2016 and dedicated herself fully to her art.

Needing new challenges, she undertook a professional specialization certificate in artistic business launch in 2019 and then an intensive online training program at the Milan Art Institute, an American art school, in 2020. She is currently completing her studies in an interdisciplinary Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts at UQAC. A lifelong learner, she also accumulates professional development training through workshops and bootcamps.

Concerned with sharing her knowledge, Shana has been teaching acrylic and oil painting at the Ateliers d’Arts Plastiques de Saguenay since 2022. Her work has been showcased in several group exhibitions in Canada and Morocco.

shana.patry@outlook.com

 

Artist statement

Painting

She focuses on the figurative representation of animals, painted with nostalgia or melancholy, which contrasts with the vitality of their often abstract backgrounds. Her favorite subjects are crows, raptors, rabbits, and big cats. She incorporates various secondary elements such as strange landscapes, power poles, trees, and pylons, while playing with patterns of butterflies, fruits, and flocks of birds.

Colors and textures play a crucial role in her work. Her pieces begin with mixed media using ink and collage, which she then meticulously refines with acrylics using glazes to enrich the colors and add depth.

She is interested in duality, antonyms, contrasts, and oppositions, as well as the ambivalence between the certain and the uncertain, the cycle of life and death, and the traces of our existence.

Shana's work has been presented in several group exhibitions in Canada as well as in Morocco.

Digital art

Her hybrid practice in painting and digital arts combines traditional techniques with new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), which she uses as a creative partner, along with databending, microcontrollers (Arduino), video mapping, screens, and sensors.

Her painting techniques, specialized in hyper-realistic animal representations, contrast with the sterile nature of machines and technological devices. She aims to create immersive experiences and refresh the medium of painting by combining these two fields.

She is interested in duality, antonyms, contrasts, and oppositions, as well as the ambivalence between the certain and the uncertain, the cycle of life and death, and the traces of our existence. Inspired by natural phenomena and biological principles, she explores the dynamics between prey and predators, emphasizing the role of humans within a technological ecosystem, where technology acts as a predator, influencing the interrelations between living organisms and their environment.