PAINTER/POTTER

Location: 30

774 Lennox Avenue Keswick

Heather Sebastian is a local artist known for hiding morse code messages in most of her paintings, which range from highly symbolic expressionist pieces to pure abstraction. Within the planes of her colourful works, the artist creates visual maps, stories, and codes for the viewer to take in and decipher. She also delights in the privacy we humans have in our minds, and takes pleasure in knowing that art can capture the artist’s inner thoughts, hence her studio name: secret studio. Her primary impulse when creating is to just be and express whatever needs to be purged, projected, examined, or explored at any given time. The morse code came from a combination of the natural progression of her obsession with painting using dots and dashes, and the love of codes and secret messages. She grew up in Newmarket around Fairy Lake, then her studies took her around Ontario, out to BC, off to Germany, and then back to York Region, where she paints, does pottery, teaches art, gardens, raises her kids, and continues to marvel at the wonders of being human on this complex and beautiful planet. Her painting, “The Mother in Ashes” was part of “The Red Show” at The Georgina Centre for Arts and Culture in June, and its companion piece “The Mother’s Exhale” will be featured at the GCAC’s “Letters to the Earth” exhibit this March. She sees art as one of the most powerful ways we can explore and bring awareness to what our planet and its inhabitants need to flourish and thrive. She lives in Island Grove, adores Lake Simcoe, and is thrilled to be a part of the local art community and the Georgina Studio Tour.

Website: secretstudio.ca

Instagram: @heathersebastiansecretstudio