Angel Terry

I was born in Havana, trained as an engineer and ocean mapper in Siberia, and settled in New Brunswick in 1998. Now I map something harder to chart: the tension in a face, the presence of an animal, the feeling a moment leaves behind.

I'm an expressionist painter based in Fredericton, New Brunswick. My paintings begin with observation, but I'm not trying to reproduce what I see. I want what remains once the obvious details are stripped away.

Each piece starts with a carefully built monochrome foundation, where I work out structure and values the way I was taught. Then I let go. Saturated color, gesture, texture and deliberate black marks take over, made with brushes, palette knives, felt and scratching tools. I leave the underpainting and corrections visible, so you can see the decisions and the movement of the hand.

Faces and animals recur in my work because a single stare or fleeting expression can say more than a perfect likeness. A painting succeeds for me when it stops being a representation and starts to have a life of its own.

My work is held in private and corporate collections in Canada, the United States, Europe and Southeast Asia, including The Okenos Corporation and Lai Hock Nam in Malaysia.

Background
I studied en...

Novosibirsk Institute of Geodesy, Aerial Photography and Cartography, Soviet Union — M.Sc., Ocean Mapping
Novosibirsk Institute of Geodesy, Aerial Photography and Cartography, Soviet Union — B.Eng., Engineering
Novosibirsk Institute of Geodesy, Aerial Photography and Cartography, Soviet Union — Degree in Teaching of Russian Language
Private painting studies with fine art masters — Cuba, Canada, and Russia

Gallery on Queen — Canada
Gallery 78 — Canada
Centro de Bienes Culturales — Cuba