Sei Whale, Limited Edition 1 of 50 Drawing

Simone Guimaraes was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and immigrated to Toronto, Canada in 2007. She discovered her passion for the visual arts while attending an elective high school photography class. As part of an exercise students had to colour black and white photos with pastels, which led her to experiment with mixed media for the first time. From 1996 to 1999, she studied painting at the prestigious School of Visual Arts of Parque Lage (Escola de Artes Visuais, EAV Parque Lage) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She dedicated the next seven years of her career working in the Arts Department of the British Council. There she had the opportunity to work with important artists and curators from both the UK and Brazil in the production of award winning exhibitions, including Rachel Whiteread and Henry Moore. In 2002 she received a curating certificate from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, UK. After moving to Canada, Simone took a break from the art world and inadvertently gained experience in charity work – now a critical backbone to her art. In 2013, Simone studied with Canadian artist, critic and OCAD teacher, Pete Smith. Simone’s early influences came from the De Stijil art movement, Piet Mondrian, Gerrit Rietveld (The Red and Blue Chair) and Frida Kahlo – vertical and horizontal lines, the use of primary colours, furniture pieces and the animal world. Her abstract and figurative work in oil, acrylic, watercolour and pastel, have served as foundation to her current technique of digitally enhancing drawings as she fuses technology and craft. Her giclée prints are not a reproduction of an original, as the term “print” implies. The line between what has been done by hand and what has been digitally manipulated is blurred, and the work that originated as a drawing on paper, can only be seen in its final form after its fusion in the digital sphere. “In a world where technology have forever transformed our lives, where the boundary between virtual and reality becomes ever so slim, I research the impact that computer based tools have in my work as well as the importance of craft in a world running on technology.” In 2016, Simone combined all of her life experience and passions into her on-going collection [art+save]=life.