Audra Townsend

Audra is a free-spirited British-born Jamaican Canadian abstract and mixed media artist in Toronto. She is a trained Sociocultural Anthropologist, who believes as humans, art is a manifestation of our curiosity about the material world and, as such, an essential part of what it means to be human. Audra borrows from Intuitive and Tactile Art forms to explore this relationship between art and the human experience. Her work is characterized by a dense network of crisscrossing (and squiggly) lines separating rectangles of multiple shapes, made of different materials, earthy and celestial colours and textures from her use of materials such as sand and stone. Viewers of her work are stimulated through an alternation of physical and visual surfaces.

Audra is self-taught. She took an Intuitive Abstract Workshop in the Spring of 2019 and enjoyed it so much that she began ongoing private coaching sessions. She received an MA in Anthropological Research from the University of Manchester in England. She also holds honours degrees in Social-Cultural Anthropology and Administrative Studies from York University in Toronto, Ontario and a Media Writing Diploma from Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario.

o Black Artists and Dialogue (BAND) Gallery, Seekers and Imprints, solo exhibition, Toronto, ON August 15 – September 14, 2024;
o Propeller Art Gallery, Salon 18, Toronto, ON, July 31 – August 18, 2024;
o BAND Off-Site, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, ON. July 20 – August 10, 2024;
o Halton Black History Awareness Society (HBHAS), Emancipation group exhibit, Georgetown, ON, July 24 – September 15, 2024;
o Bank Art Fair, Seoul, South Korea, August 8 – 11, 2024;
Young Place Art Fair, Doors Open Toronto, May 25, 2024, Toronto, ON;
o York University, Anthropology Department, Beyond the Academy, Toronto,ON, February 9, 2024;
o Propeller Art Gallery, Off the Wall Fundraiser, Toronto, ON, December 13, 2023
o Propeller Art Gallery, Salon 17, Toronto, ON, August 2 – 20, 2023;
o Artscape Weston Common, Brazen, my first solo exhibition, July 11-August 3, 2023, Toronto, ON;
o The Gallery George, Take Flight group exhibit, May 31 – June 25, 2023, Vancouver, B.C.;
o Liberty Village Art Crawl, Saturday, June 10, 2023, The Bentway, Toronto, ON;
o Art Vancouver 2022, 2023, Vancouver, B.C.;
o Propeller Art Gallery Unframed Exhibit January 2023 and Off-Wall Exhibit December 2022, Toronto, ON;
o Toronto Art Crawl, Christmas Market, November 2022, ...