As another year comes to pass, it’s time to take a look back at some noteworthy highlights.
In 2022, 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 2022 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. We certainly are going to continue following these artists and their career and works!
The 10 Most Viewed Artists of 2022
Sara Shoghi
Sara Shoghi is a Toronto-based interdisciplinary artist specialising in painting, illustration, motion graphics, and design. Her primary focus is on Persian art, Persian Miniature and Cultural Elements for topics related to Women, the LGBTQ+ community, and social issues. Sara is interested in drawing awareness through creating artworks, with the belief that awareness can change oppressive, repressive and segregative laws.
Anam Feerasta
Anam Feerasta is a Pakistani-Canadian artist based in Toronto. She works primarily with acrylic and oil paints on canvas and plexiglass. Anam explores oscillating feelings of fragmentation and alignment that are intimately tied to her identity and Pakistani upbringing – feelings that she believes are universal.
Ebenezer Haile
Ebenezer Haile is an artist of Ethiopian descent born and raised in Toronto, Ont. As the son of a photographer images have been integral to his upbringing and his sense making of the world around him. Although much of his education strayed from the arts, attaining a biological sciences degree at the University Of Guelph, his continued interest in beauty and the narratives surrounding images of value pulled his interests back to the arts.
Aside from his ability to realistically represent images in an artistic manner, Ebenezer attempts to anchor his images with narratives concerned with the human condition in its many forms.
Camilla Teodoro
Camilla Teodoro is a Filipina-born illustrator based in Toronto, Ontario. Her art is often based on observations and little delights found in her environment; a central theme of her illustrations as they often include playful characters who interact with their surroundings. She hopes to transport viewers to a place that captures the joy and sometimes the mischievous parts of childhood.
Justin Mezzapelli
Justin Mezzapelli is a multi-media artist interested in domesticity, multiplicity and queerness. Currently working with pointillist ink illustration, his images depict activity of everyday life, suggest an attention to time, and reference media of the public domain. As an illustrator, writer, and filmmaker, he seeks to reframe identity within the ever-present mundane, delineating an experience woven from the visual, cultural fabric along which we navigate our lives.
Vridhhi Chaudhry
Vridhhi is an interdisciplinary artist from India based in Toronto. She completed her MFA from OCAD University in 2022. As an arts-based researcher, she draws from personal narratives and uses watercolours, poetry, and performative art to translate personal trauma into whimsical and tangible art. Her work honours the resilience of victims and survivors and how trauma bodies find ways to bloom in the gloom. Through her art, she engages viewers in conversations grounding her work in relational aesthetics.
Gordon Sellen
Gordon‘s exploration of art and many of it’s mediums has been a lifelong pursuit. He finds inspiration around him everywhere and although Abstract Expressionism is a favourite, he has explored landscapes, figurative work and even Pop Art.
Sherry Dube
Sherry Dube is a self-taught traditional artist whose passion is to capture nature onto canvas with a highly detailed and realistic style. In her words, “The beauty I find in nature around me is what inspires my work, & my desire to preserve this vision is what motivates me to create”.
Firouzeh Saremi Far
Firouzeh Saremi Far is an artist based in Toronto. Interested in human matters, she illustrates the struggles of everyday life, and tries to create hope and optimism through her art.
Emerald Repard-Denniston
Emerald Repard-Denniston is a queer Chinese-Canadian contemporary artist. She is committed to anticolonial, anti-capitalist politics and activist work. Based in Squamish, Tsleil-waututh and Musqueam/Vancouver, and Tkaronto/Toronto, her practice focuses on the diasporic-Canadian experience through drawing, painting and digital media.
Whatever the new year brings, our ongoing passion for emerging artists from all across Canada continues. Cheers to an artful year past, and an even more beautiful one ahead. For a throwback to the most viewed artists of 2021, revisit our post from a year ago!