Fatima Jamil Faiz : Five Oil Paintings

  
Born on February 6, 1971 in Pakistan, Fatima Jamil Faiz is a Canadian painter and printmaker. She studied fine arts at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Pakistan and at California State University.

Being an artist and teacher, Fatima has taught art at many institutions, including Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi, Toronto District School Board, Canada, and the Georgian College of Applied Arts and Technology in Canada. She has conducted numerous painting and drawing workshops in Canada and the U.S., and also illustrates children’s books.

Fatima lives and works in Richmond Hill, Ontario, and exhibits her work at various art galleries in Toronto and abroad. Her work has been exhibited at reputable art galleries such as the Propeller Center for Visual Arts, the Eastern Front Gallery, and various art galleries on Toronto's Queens Street and the Historic Distillery District.

Most of her recent work is in the medium of oil on canvas. The painting's symbols are "used as vehicles through which [she] responds to society." Her current work from the "Suburban Series"—including the five paintings featured in this ARTerrain gallery—stems from the open country spaces of northern Ontario.

Fatima's recent work represents a dramatic shift, based on her current surroundings."The Canadian banal mundane, serene, and tranquil suburbia living has inspired me to create a new mode of expression in these landscape paintings," she says. "I have tried to achieve a deliberate design-like pattern of open squarish spaces juxtaposing and weaving together at a glance; and yet at the same time letting the viewer feel the essence of a structured suburban landscape through the open fields."