Bronwyn McIvor is an artist and illustrator based in Vancouver.
Please contact me for further information on my art (sales, commissions, and general inquiries). You can find my latest and in-progress work on Instagram @bronwynmcivor Join my Mailing List below for news and updates on future exhibitions.
My practice is focused on painting and drawing, with an interest in exploring the intersection of the beautiful and the grotesque. After acquiring a foundation in classical painting in my early years, I attended Langara College’s Fine Arts program and completed my BFA at Emily Carr University.
The Undiscovered Kitchen
Throughout my practice, I have taken unusual angles on the classical subject of still life, focusing mainly on the detritus of food preparation rather than the prized objects showcased in the Dutch still lifes that continue to inspire me. Created primarily in oils, my paintings monumentalize and enrich this overlooked everyday debris with sumptuous, bold colours, referencing the intensity of Caravaggio and the luminous detail of Mary Pratt. My work transforms the mundane, relishing its detail and its drama, and in the process animates it with unexpected vitality. Commonplace foodstuffs become landscape, portrait, or strangely unrecognizable presences. I hope that these depictions give the viewer pause to appreciate the surreal qualities of everyday life.
Meet The Townsfolk.
It started with an eye, drawn in ink. Pen to paper, no sketches beforehand, moving from one mark to the next to see what would appear.
They began over five years ago as a break from my larger oil paintings, but over time these drawings coalesced into something more, a growing body of work that has developed its own interconnected narratives and mythology as I collaborated with local authors and was in turn inspired to create new artworks.
In recent years I have expanded the scope of this project again, this time painting in oils to create some new characters, and revisit existing ones. They are each a surprising combination of friendly and fearsome, handsome and hideous, funny and unfathomable. The characters’ individual quirks invite the viewer to look closely and imagine these folks’ strange stories.
Bronwyn McIvor 