Ilyana Martinez

“While walking in the city’s centre and parks, I observe and collect sensations from the spaces around me. These encounters with the environment appear in the shapes and lines of paintings that are intuitively created. Simple forms such as a seed fascinate me with their microcosmic worlds, while the complexity of urban life draws me to imagine alternate possibilities. The paintings are remnants of a dialogue with my surroundings.”

Ilyana Martínez was born in Toronto to a Mexican father and Canadian mother and raised primarily in Mexico. She studied at the Nova Scotia and Ontario College of Art and Design. Since graduating, Ilyana has been in a number of exhibitions in Toronto, Montreal, Victoria and Regina. At the 2005 Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, she received Honourable Mention for watercolour. While at OCAD, she received a W.O Forsyth Scholarship, a Drawing and Painting Faculty Award and a Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour Honour Award.

Ilyana currently lives and works as a designer and artist in Toronto.