“I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.”
I'm Callie Gray, an award winning international artist.
Painting rich, joyful, energetic abstracts, to make your heart sing, is my passion! My art reflects the beauty of the natural world, my imagination, and memories, combining past experiences with present circumstances.
In a natural and intuitive manner, I select and combine paint colors and marks, gradually adding layers upon layers on the canvas to create my unique artworks. Putting paint to canvas is like I’m having a magical conversation that unites the tangible with the ethereal. Through this process I find greater understanding of myself and experience a unique connection to the world around me. My paintings come alive with washes, fluid brushstrokes, and random marks, adding depth and 'history' creating a captivating narrative. And if it connects with someone and gives them joy then I have done my job.
More… I’m always questioning life; what is it all for, what is the best version of me, and what is my connection to nature? Why does being in nature make me feel so complete? It’s not just physical but spiritual, in essence, bringing the essential soul out of hiding. My work has become an enquiry of this relationship.
Nature, not as representational, but about the feelings it stirs in me and how I feel connected and renewed by it. That’s why I paint intuitively, I don’t want to paint ‘from’ a photo of nature, I want to paint ‘about’ my memories of being in nature. I want you to feel what I feel when I am in nature. The brushstrokes, the colors, the expressive marks all become this new language that bridges the physical and spiritual worlds. A language to bring the essential soul out of hiding, a language that connects you to your own deeper nature and the collective soul of humanity.
…I'm an acrylic painter who also likes to add mark making using graphite, paint marks, pens and occasionally collage. My style is that of abstract expressionism in that I paint intuitively using bold and free brushstrokes, interspersed by scribbly mark making that I put my whole body into (kind of like a dance) It must be joyful (movement). Then I like to finesse a painting, by looking at the whole and what marks, colors and compositional elements are needed to make a work outstanding. I'm always evolving and growing as an artist and that is very important to me, to not stand still. I've started to develop a few key marks (symbols) that I like to use in most of my paintings. They symbolize the heart mind and soul of who I am as well as the deeper connection we all share as humanity.
Recent Awards
BoldBrush Painting competition Finalist April 2023
BoldBrush Painting competition Winner 3rd place Abstract May 2022
Award of Distinction. Bonita Springs National Art Festival, USA. January 2022
BoldBrush Painting competition Winner 2nd place Abstract August 2021
Best of Painting Award. Bonita Springs National Art Festival, USA. February 2020
Shows and Exhibitions (Last 2 years)
Elora Fergus Studio Tour September/October 2023
Square Foot Show (Online) August 10 - 12 2023
Elora Fergus Spring Open Studios May13 - 14 2023
Shows and Exhibitions Continued
Bonita Springs National Art Festival, Bonita Springs, Florida USA, February 2023
Bonita Springs National Art Festival, Bonita Springs, Florida USA, January 2023
Square Foot Show (Online) August 11 - 13 2022
Creative Spark in the Yard, Elora - July 9 - 10 2022
Solo Exhibition at Red Brick Café, Guelph. June and July 2022
Riverdale Art Walk (Online) June 18th – 26th 2022
Square Foot Show (Online) June 15 - 17 2022
Elora Fergus Art in the Open (Studio Tour) – May7 - 8 2022
Bonita Springs National Art Festival, Bonita Springs, Florida USA, February 2022
Bonita Springs National Art Festival, Bonita Springs, Florida USA, January 2022
Elora Centre for the Arts, Solo Show “Everything in its Right Place” Oct 2021- Jan 2022
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time”
— Thomas Merton