DONNA MONTGOMERY
ARTIST BACKGROUND
I am an artist from Northern Ontario Canada. I was born in the small town of Coniston and grew up in the Greater Sudbury region. During the early 1980’s I moved to BC then returned in 1985 to settle with my family in Sault Ste Marie. In recent years I have relocated to Southern Ontario spending summer months and some of the winter at a Northern Ontario cottage.
Throughout my life art has been a passion. I began painting at first in oils and then in my twenties I took a weekend watercolour workshop with Graham Scholes and everything changed. The unpredictability and challenge of watercolour captivated my interest and desire to explore the medium.
During the 1970's I began teaching elementary school and earned my B.A. and B. Ed including a Visual Arts Specialist along the way.
Family and career were foremost for many years and it wasn’t until another workshop in 2004 with artist Helga Flower which rekindled my desire to enter the art world
once again. Following this I entered local art shows and juried art exhibitions. My work has won several awards and is displayed in homes around the world.
I was an active member of the Algoma Art Society, served as its president for two years, and was also a member
of my home town art club in Onaping Falls.
Spending time in the outdoors of Northern Ontario has given me an appreciation of its natural beauty. This is the subject of many of my paintings. I strive to capture the simple beauty and essence of the subject in an artistic way.
I have pursued new creative challenges and techniques by taking workshops by well-known artists such as Chuck Burns, Cheng Khee Chee, Helga Flower, and Tom Lynch. The playful and creative nature of the variety of media used in these workshops has provided new and exciting challenges. Abstract art is a genre which is now part of my creative direction because of the freedom of expression and the challenges it affords.