Exhibit: February 29-April 14, 2012   Public Reception: Saturday, March 3, 6-8 pm

Teodora Pica was born in Transylvania, Romania in 1964 to a family of artists.  Her great grandfather was a trade artist, her grandfather a muralist, and her father a painter who apprenticed under his father, the muralist.  It was Pica’s father, Emilio, who passed on the old tradition of mixing pigments and preparing surfaces for oil painting to Teodora, providing a foundation in the understanding of color and layering of pigments before she entered school. 

Her formal training began in 1975 at the Fine Arts Program in Brasov, Romania and was followed by studies in architecture at the Institute of Architecture Ion Mincu in Bucharest.  She shed the repressive constraints of her country’s Communist government and immigrated to Canada  where she furthered her art education.  Teodora went on to earn a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Toronto and continued studies in Painting and Drawing from the Ontario College of Art and Design. It was at Ontario College of Art & Design that she studied abstraction with the prestigious Painters Eleven member William Ronald, as well as the noted abstractionists Paul Sloggett RCA, Gordon Rayner and Graham Coughtry.  Painters Eleven is the Canadian equivalent to the Abstract Expressionist movement based in New York.  Her current interests lie in the iconic painting of Chaim Soutine (1893-1943) and the neo-expressionism of Philip Guston (1913-1980). 

Teodora admittedly belongs to no particular artistic style or movement.  Instead, her recent creativity and artistic productivity spring from her rich Transylvanian traditions, her current Canadian observations and experiences, and a transcendental imagination that spills forth onto her canvases.

Teodora’s works continue to change and evolve, as does her subject matter and media choice.  Although accomplished in, and well-known for, the diffused dream-like quality of her romantic landscapes, Teodora is quite comfortable working in abstraction as found in more recent collections such as Core Estate.   These multi-layered, sometimes collaged paintings are divided into three groups – Dowry, Treasures, and Ardour  – that explore images, personal and universal, traditional and contemporary, from her imagined dowry chest.  Rich in rural Romanian culture, the imagery reflects elements of wood carvings, tapestry, and ceramics fused with a keen modern and/or contemporary sensibility. 

Now living and working in Toronto, Teodora has been recognized in a number of solo and group exhibitions and collections across the globe, including the National Museum of Fine Arts in Romania where her work has been the subject of various publications.  Her most recent venture, TeodoraART Gallery, introduced her newest body of work Hydroponics this past December.  Additional information may be found atwww.teodoraartgallery.com.