Collection: Richard Smolinski

Despite aspiring to be a diplomat and actively engaging in international affairs, an ill- fated interest in editorial cartoons and political caricatures led me astray and I ended up as an artist. My socially critical work examines social structures, power dynamics and oppressive behavior patterns, and its expressive figuration and correlative narrative structures offer a dense and detailed picture of our contemporary predicament and its antagonists.

The Washington Post’s Mark Jenkins noted that my work “suggests German-American satirist George Grosz, while his teeming, hellish compositions recall Hieronymus Bosch,” which suggests my work’s aesthetic, while name-checking a pair of my favourite artists. Exhibited and presented across Canada and Internationally, my work has received the funding support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. As an educator, I am interested in experiential education and the transformative potential of creativity. My doctoral research yielded the first PhD in Art conferred by the University of Calgary. Currently I teach at Brock University and the Ontario College of Art & Design University, while living and working in St. Catharines.