As another year comes to pass, it’s time to take a look back at some noteworthy highlights.

In 2023, we were thrilled to welcome hundreds of the most talented emerging artists across Canada on to Partial. It’s because of these exceptional folks from across all different mediums – photography, painting, mixed media – that we have been able to get closer to our mission: more art on more walls.

We took a look at the new artists who joined Partial in 2023 and highlighted the 10 artists (in no particular order) who drew the most number of views to their profiles and artwork over the course of the year. The results are exciting, diverse, and probably worth a first, second, and third look if you’re looking to add to your collection soon.

Top 10 Most Viewed Fresh Artists of 2023

Erin Crysdale

Erin Crysdale‘s paintings explore how something personal is in fact a universal experience and is what links us to the best parts of humanity. Her magical realist style merges narrative with dream like imagery conjuring up feelings of joy, solitude and at times loneliness. Erin’s goal is to paint an image that you can look at for a lifetime without losing meaning or pleasure.

Arif Bahaduri

Arif Bahaduri was born and raised in Afghanistan. He is an artist who started learning art in 2007 in a private art class in Kabul. Through his process, He learned different skills and worked with different materials, and now uses them to give meaning to his artworks. In 2013, He was among the top 10 in Kabul for the Afghan contemporary art prize, which helped him become familiar with contemporary art. His artworks are in mixed media, painting, and performance art. He has had solo and group exhibitions in and outside of Afghanistan and completed an artist residency.

Rose L. Williams

Rose L. Williams is a mixed media artist working with Nature’s chemistry based in Vancouver BC, Canada. Her early career in photography is the grounding for her mixed media Nature themed paintings and textiles. She is inspired by intimate encounters with plants & animals, and identify with their fragility, resilience and evanescence. As a BIPOC artist with a disability, her journey explores the strength in vulnerability. When you feel trapped in your own body, art made in partnership with Nature brings a sense of freedom and grace.

John Ford

John Ford‘s latest work continues an exploration of a kind of everyday, active remembrance, building forms from a series of smaller parts, as in architectural construction or quiltmaking; favourite pastimes of his mother and father. The slow, additive process of combining small parts to create a larger, cohesive object reflects a process and aesthetic that is rooted in childhood and memory.

His work focuses on shape, colour and texture, using plywood, wood filler, and in some cases drywall and drywall compound, screws, nails and cloth. He incorporates acrylic paint because it echoes the flatness and utilitarian feel of house paint but provides a greater ability to mix colour in the studio environment.

Each piece is named for the memory of a place or time, or might reflect the events of the current moment.

Ivy Tang

Zishan (Ivy) Tang is an artist who specializes in painting and drawing. Her focus is on capturing the intricate textures and details of landscapes and human body through experimentation with various mediums and techniques. Drawing inspiration from Chinese landscape painting, she explores ways to reconcile traditional and modern understandings in her work. Through her art, Tang seeks to strike a balance between honouring the past and embracing the present, creating pieces that are both timeless and contemporary.

Jim Pescott

Jim Pescott is known as ‘The Dot Painter’. His painting style is based on an approach to pointillism using between 10 to 15 layers of dots. This is a self-taught painting style dating back to when he left the corporate world in 1996 to follow his passion. He lives and creates in Calgary, Alberta where he’s inspired by the landscapes of the prairies, the Foothills and the Rocky Mountains.

Clare McIntyre

Clare McIntyre is a classically-trained artist and designer who lives in Toronto. Her combined talents in painting and interior design give her work a unique style that is centred around sensory observations. She invites the viewer into a world where they may get the sense of a slight breeze, the warmth of dappled sunlight, or notice the tactility of a smooth, damp leaf.

Clare adds her own touch to realism by incorporating brushstrokes that give her art a sense of movement. She is particularly drawn to florals because the subject gives her an opportunity to bring things to life by exaggerating objects and using colour to play with light, depth, and transparency.

Wiz Wensel

Wiz Wensel is a contemporary, abstract painter and mixed media artist currently residing in Edmonton. She received a BFA in Art and Design from the University of Alberta.

Wiz spent time as a child in the Edmonton Art Gallery studying art and hours at her father’s architectural design firm amidst classic, modern design and colourful textiles. These early experiences and the formalist influences in art school, set the foundation for her art direction.

Wiz’s earnest desire to create vibrant, modern works combined with her passion for colour, abstraction and experimentation continues to provide the inspiration that fuels her current path.

Nancy M. Martini

Nancy M. Martini, a self-taught artist residing in Burlington, Ontario, Canada, passionately paints expressive and colourful works that bring beauty and happiness to homes. Balancing her artistic pursuits with a full-time finance career and part-time teaching of management accounting to university students, Nancy dedicates her evenings and weekends to her home studio, where painting sessions range from 15 minutes to two hours. A mother of three, Nancy’s artwork primarily features pretty florals and birch trees, though she also enjoys creating pieces with fragrance bottles, animals, and women, always incorporating her signature pastel palettes.

Ronald Nygren

Ronald Nygren, an emerging Alberta artist, captures the beauty of the Canadian prairies and his travels using watercolour, ink pen, acrylic, and oil paint. Inspired by Francis of Assisi’s belief that those who work with their hands, head, and heart are artists, Ron, mostly self-taught, honed his skills through courses at The Banff School of Art (Black and White Photography) and the Kootenay School of Art in Nelson, B.C. (Graphic Design).

Now in retirement, Ron dedicates himself full-time to his lifelong love of art at his home studio in Chipman, Alberta. His contemporary realistic style aims to encourage viewers to slow down and appreciate the simple beauty of the world, both in the Canadian prairies and beyond.