Bryant Park II Print

Ti-An DeMartines is a Toronto-based visual artist working primarily in painting and photography. In 2008, she obtained an Honours Bachelor of Fine Arts from York University, her studies primarily focused on exploring landscape, as well as issues with gender and technology in drawing, painting, photography, and digital art. In Ti-An's current series "In and Out of Focus", she uses the soft focus, bokeh aesthetic of her photographs as an alternative form to traditional impressionism. Since it's birth in the latter nineteenth century, Impressionism has been influenced by photography. One of the key reasons Impressionist painters were beginning to accept photographs as a useful tool in their painting practice is because they had a great interest in light and the accurate representation of tonal values (Naomi Rosenblum, A World History of Photography, 3rd Edition, (New York: Abbeville Press, 1997), 213.). The out of focus image removes fine detail in favor of simple geometric shapes and pure, transparent colours. This allows for "˜light' to take its place as the star amongst all other elements in these paintings and photographs. Ti-An's career focus is not restricted to art making- she has educated children in art for several years and is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist Awards: 2007- McMichael Canadian Art Collection Landscape Photography Contest, 3rd Place, Kleinburg, Ontario Bibliography: 2008- Julia Pronin, Review: with In and with Out, FutuReale Magazine, Volume 1, Issue 2, p. 10-11 www.ti-an.ca