Distinguished Artist 2022

This year we have a collaboration of two artists.

Penny Bois and Sharon Preen

Penny Bois was born in 1962 in Beaver Lake in Northern Ontario. At the age of 16 began an interest in sketching and painting. She placed her art aside and graduated from nursing in 1983. After 36 years of Cardiac ICU Nursing, Penny retired. In 2016 her love of art was reignited and Penny began sketching and painting with no formal training. Her preferred media are charcoal, pastel and oil. Penny’s interest lies in portraits. She is fascinated with the mood and spirit of her subjects and recreates this on canvas. She has sold many commissioned portraits as well as her own creative pieces.

2016 La Cloche Art Show enters her first piece, pencil sketch

2017 La Cloche Art Show second prize, charcoal; Honorable mention: charcoal

2018 One Skye Art Gallery displays Penny’s art and is invited as a featured artist

2019 La Cloche Art Show entered two pastels

Penny continues to create and refine her art. She looks forward to what the future holds and the direction portrait art will lead her.

You can follow her on social media: Penny Bois on Facebook and Instagram

Sharon Preen.

I am a self taught artist inspired by the landscape of Northern Ontario.

Growing up summering on the shores of Georgian Bay and now living in the North Country, I have an ingrained love and appreciation of this unique landscape. Maybe it is my voyageur ancestors affecting my passion, giving me a haunting sense of the spirits of the land, or maybe it is that these places speak a language that whispers to my heart and encourages me to notice deeply.

My indoor studio interpretations, using photos, sketches and journal notes as reference, are greatly influenced by outdoor observations and experiences

My artistic journey has focused on the plein air genre using colour and light to describe the variable moods and poetry of the Northern Landscape.

The landscape is not static...by being out in the elements and getting a real sense of the unfolding vista, I am compelled to express the movement, mood, sounds, smells I experience. All these are necessary to create the poetry of a painting.

This is a landscape that I know intimately and feel a need to share. It is not about painting a copy of the image before me but about painting my response to the experience and paying homage to the privilege of living in the midst of this unspoiled natural beauty. With this grounding in the Plein Air genre, I am now enthusiastically exploring techniques and approaches towards new expressions in the studio.