Carol Wainio is recognized as one of Canada’s foremost painters. Her work, known for its visual complexity and monochromatic palette, has been exhibited in museums and public galleries throughout the country and abroad.
In composing Puss in the Subcontinent (#11 Andhra Pradesh) (2009), Cendrillon (2010), and Cake, Ogre (2013), Wainio has drawn upon fables and folktales from across popular culture while adding new layers of meaning to these stories through her collaging of images. As she states:
For me the illustrated book – whether exhibition catalogue, children’s book, or manuscript – acts as a kind of nexus reflecting our changing and contradictory relationship to representation. All of them seek in some way to “educate” us to images, ideas, or the world.
Wainio’s mixing of pictorial elements from a wide range of literary sources confuses and complicates histories, inviting viewers to consider their own ideas of how dominant narratives are constructed.
Carol Wainio, Cendrillon, 2010. Photo is courtesy of the artist.
Purchased with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Grants program/Oeuvre achetée avec l’aide du programme de Subventions d’acquisition du Conseil des arts du Canada, the Art Sales and Rental Society, Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Mark Bursey, and with assistance from the Dr. S.T. Laufer and Mrs. Irmgard Laufer Endowment, 2019.
Carol Wainio (Sarnia, Ontario, 1955) studied at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, University of Toronto, and Concordia University. In acknowledgement of her significant contributions to the discourse of painting, she was the recipient of the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2014. Wainio currently lives in Ottawa where she is an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa.
