I am particularly interested in how cities are designed and the impact that urban planning has on our day to day lives. The vast majority of Canadians live in cities, in fact the majority of people worldwide now live in urban centres.  Cities are complex. They consist of many parts.  And like the mosaics that make up the body of my work all the pieces are interconnected.

Some of the topics I delve into include transit, the Toronto waterfront redevelopment, creative densification, heritage preservation, and more recently, the isolation and loneliness experienced by a growing number of people as we transition from an industrial-based economy to a knowledge-based economy.

I use a wide variety of construction materials in my work including tile, metal, and glass. The materials are painstakingly cut, shaped and adhered to a wood base.  Each work typically takes months to complete. Many of the works are viewed from an aerial vantage point. Like maps this perspective affords a contextual view that makes the patterns and complexities inherent in urban land-use easier to see.

As in urban planning I begin each work by building the 'infrastructure' first to delineate neighbourhoods, roads and transit lines. But just as cities evolve over time and sometimes in unanticipated ways, the finished work can often look quite different from my original sketches. Things reveal themselves during the process.

I view each piece of work as a chapter in an ongoing visual story that examines and interprets issues that cities face. It is a story I began some thirty years ago with observations about urban design that interested me at that time. Some of those issues are still relevant today.

 

 

 

Toronto-based artist Anne Winter is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design. She has a Bachelor of Interior Design and a Certificate in Architectural Technology both from Toronto Metropolitan University. She is a past winner in the category of Best Painting at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition.