"pink" Painting

Born in Ukraine in 1987, Iryna Petryk is a Canadian-Ukrainian contemporary artist whose practice explores memory, identity, and the emotional connection between people, place, and cultural heritage. Raised in a hardworking family, Petryk developed an appreciation for craftsmanship from an early age. Her father’s remarkable ability to create and build by hand, together with her own instinctive passion for drawing, shaped a lifelong fascination with the expressive possibilities of making. She received formal training in Fashion Design and Costume Modeling before beginning her professional career in the bridal fashion industry. Following her immigration to Canada, Petryk continued to paint while building a new life, gradually recognizing that art was not simply a profession but an essential part of her identity. Painting became both a language of self-expression and a way of preserving personal and cultural memory. In 2018, she became a member of the Ukrainian Canadian Artists Association in Toronto. In 2020, she founded Fantasy Art Studio in Mississauga, Ontario, where she mentors young artists while maintaining an active studio practice. Working primarily in acrylic and mixed media on large-scale canvases, Petryk creates expressive figurative compositions distinguished by layered textures and rich symbolic narratives. Her paintings investigate themes of resilience, remembrance, femininity, and belonging, inviting viewers into quiet spaces where personal histories intersect with universal human experience.