Toronto's leading indie art gallery, URBAN GALLERY, presents their show for December 2018 with a whole herd of colourful, vibrant horses galloping across the gallery walls: VANESSA CUARTAS presents lively abstract equine portraits in her solo show BRIO that runs now until December 29th….a glorious exhibition on which to end the year!

Of Colombian heritage, Vanessa is originally from Miami, and now resides in Toronto. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Central Florida with an emphasis on graphic design, later receiving an Art Direction Diploma from the Miami Ad School.  Throughout her school years and any personal time, Vanessa always found time to paint as much as she could, and rode her family’s horses regularly. She became passionate about the Puerto Rican Paso Fino breed and if you look carefully at her paintings, you can see their influence in the  conformation (stance) of each subject.

We spoke with Vanessa just before the gallery doors were opened and here is what she shared…

A designer by day and artist by night, her passion for painting has grown stronger in recent years. When she first moved to Toronto, she was without an established circle of friends and struggling to find an artistic focus so Vanessa decided to do what she loved most: paint horses. Her unique contemporary style has found an appreciative audience and her circle of friends has grown exponentially, many of whom attended the gallery on Vanessa’s opening day, Saturday Dec. 8th (below).

Her bold colorful BRIO series conveys movement and a lot of positive energy that attracts attention, even from the littlest art fans…

Joining Vanessa at the opening were her husband, Mario (below R) and brother JP (below (L)

And gallery curator, Allen Shugar (below L) and gallery director Calvin Hambrook (below R) joined Vanessa to celebrate her opening.

If you love horses, you will LOVE this exhibition….

…and within the first half-hour of her opening reception, Vanessa had already sold one piece, titled “The Journey”(below)

If you missed the opening reception, you can come meet the artist Saturday Dec.15^th (2pm to 4pm) and you can also visit the gallery weekdays and Saturdays throughout the month of December, 2018. Log on to www.UrbanGallery.ca for hours and directions – located at 400 Queen St East, Toronto.