Carol wainio biography

Carol Wainio was born in Sarnia, Ontario, in 1955 to Finnish immigrants and grew up in Waterloo, Ontario. Since 1980, she has lived and worked in Montréal, Ottawa, and points between. She developed an early interest in visual art through her father and pursued studies at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax (1976) and the University of Toronto (1978–1979) before earning an MFA from Concordia University, Montréal, in 1985. There, she worked with Guido Molinari and undertook additional studies in the history of ideas, developing a painting practice that draws on interests in history, narrative, and broader visual culture—brought together in a discursive, visceral approach, where figures from past and present, high art and vernacular forms of expression, engage in shifting, layered grounds. Her work has been described as visually dense, conceptually full, and marked by a desire to use painting as a means to consider representation itself as well as real world issues.

Wainio’s work has been exhibited at the National Gallery of Canada, Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal,

Carol Wainio

Canadian painter (born 1955)

Carol WainioRCA (born 1955) is a Canadian painter. Her work, known for its visual complexity and monochrome color palette, has been exhibited in major art galleries in Canada, the U.S., Europe and China.[1] She has won multiple awards, including the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts.[2]

Life

Born in Sarnia, Ontario, Wainio is the daughter of Finnish immigrants,[3] she grew up in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. Wainio studied at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and at the University of Toronto and later completed a Master of Fine Arts at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec.[4] She lives in Ottawa and is an adjunct professor in visual arts at the University of Ottawa.

Painting career

Her paintings often reference a variety of sources from fairy tales, medieval manuscripts to the 2008 financial collapse.[5] Wainio's canvases have been described by art critic Emily Falvey as "fairy-tale landscapes littered with the detritus of contemporary

Selected Solo Exhibitions

Selected Group Exhibitions

Carol Wainio is a Canadian Postwar & Contemporary painter who was born in 1955.

How much does a Carol Wainio cost?

Carol Wainio's work has been offered at auction multiple times, with realized prices ranging from 115 USD to 15,725 USD, depending on the size and medium of the artwork.

What is Carol Wainio's most expensive painting?

Since 2012 the record price for this artist at auction is 15,725 USD for Structures of Memory #2, sold at Waddington's in 2012.

Where can I see Carol Wainio's works?

Their work is currently being shown at Paul Petro Contemporary Art in Toronto. Numerous key galleries and museums such as Arsenal Contemporary Art, New York have featured Carol Wainio's work in the past.

Carol Wainio in the news

Carol Wainio has been featured in articles for ARTnews, The Globe and Mail and Canadian Art. The most recent article is Carol Wainio: Recent Paintings and Drawings written for The Brooklyn Rail in May 2024.

Copyright ©icythaw.pages.dev 2025