Online Painting Class | our philosophy, our niche
At Walk the Arts, our approach is centered on each participant’s individual journey and experience level. From the very beginning, we provide attentive, personalized support designed to help every student grow with confidence. Through engaging discussions, reflection, and open dialogue—both one-on-one and within the group—we learn and evolve together in an atmosphere of curiosity and discovery. We encourage originality, creative freedom, and artistic integrity while navigating the challenges of today’s evolving art world. Most importantly, we value and nurture the distinct voice and individuality of every participant.
Over the years
Over the last years, Walk the Arts has welcomed dozens and dozens of participants online from different backgrounds and artistic experiences. Unfortunately, we are unable to feature everyone on our website for two simple reasons: first, the site would become far too large and difficult to navigate, and second, we generally keep participant profiles and testimonials online for approximately two years. We remain deeply grateful to every individual who has been part of the Walk the Arts community and artistic journey.
The final positive crit.
Traditionally, the final critique is conducted by invited guests. Your instructor, Yves Larocque, felt that he had already shared everything he could throughout the course and believed it would be more valuable for the final evaluation to come from a qualified outside professional offering a fresh and independent perspective. Below, a few of our "crits".
Jennifer Macklem
Ottawa (Ontario, Canada)
https://www.jennifermacklem.com/
“Jennifer Macklem creates sculpture, paintings, public art, installations, drawings and has played with video and performance. With a national and international exhibition record, her artistic practice is experimental in nature. She has presented her work at artist-run centers, university galleries and museums. She completed her undergraduate studies at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and at the Parsons School of Design. She earned an MFA at the Université du Quebec à Montreal.
Originally from Montreal, Jennifer Macklem is an Associate Professor of Sculpture at the University of Ottawa, following a tenured position at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick. During the mid-1990’s she served as coordinator/Director/Curator of the Alternator Gallery for Contemporary Art, based in Kelowna, British Columbia.
Exhibitions include: Imago Mundi, Onsite Gallery, Toronto and Palazzo Loredan, Venice ( Benetton Collection); Galerie Eric Devlin, Montreal (solo); The Jaipur Kala Chaupal at Jaipur Kala Kendra, India; The Art Gallery of Outremont (solo), Montreal; Salle Alfred Pellan, Laval, Quebec (solo) ; St Margaret’s House Chapel Cinema Space, London, UK; University of Waterloo Art Gallery, Ontario; Galerie d’art de l’UQAM; The Beaverbrook Provincial Art Gallery, New Brunswick; The Kelowna Art Gallery (solo); White Box Gallery, New York City; Point B, Brooklyn; Roosevelt University, Chicago; The String Room Gallery at Wells College, NY; Centre d’Art Actuel Circa, Montreal (solo); Galway Centre for the Arts, Ireland; Centre for Art Tapes, Halifax; Access Gallery, Vancouver (solo); The Musée Nationale du Quebec, Quebec City; Gallery Ernst Higler, Vienna (solo)
Reviews of her work have been published in the Journal of Canadian Art History, Vie des Arts, Espace, Guerilla Art, Front cover: Etcetera and Le Devoir, Montreal.” (https://www.jennifermacklem.com/about)
Breden de Montigny
Ottawa, Canada
Owner of Contemporay de Montigny Contemporay
"Since 2008 Brendan A. de Montigny (he/him) has worked to build the legacy of creatives in Canada and beyond with public and private organisations and individual collectors.
Brendan holds a Master of Fine Art from the University of Ottawa, and a Bachelor of Fine Art from Concordia University, with a Major in Painting & Drawing and a minor in Print Media.
Brendan lives on the un-ceded Anishinaabe Algonquin territory known as Gatineau, Quebec with his partner and son. When not working, how is probably cycling, cooking, or playing cribbage"
https://demontignycontemporary.com/
Robert Hoerlein
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
https://www.roberthoerlein.com
https://www.instagram.com/roberthoerlein/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL9eLHhaHUE&t=15s
Michael Mahoney (United States)
From Indiana
Bio
“I was born in Detroit, Michigan into a working-class family, the first child in a family that grew into ten children. As a child I often amused myself by drawing, then painting. By the time I was in high school, I had no doubt that I was to be a professional artist. At a university in Detroit I majored in art, concentrating in painting. After receiving an MFA, I went to Italy for five months to travel and paint. Upon returning to Detroit, I began to teach at several colleges and art centres in the area. Some years later I took a full-time position to teach in Illinois and, now retired from teaching, I continue to live there where I have a studio and work every day. Now, a bit about my work.
Work
I work mostly in oil paint, pastel and various drawing mediums. While still in school, I found that I like to work from direct observation of things, people or places. I still do today. I choose to search and discover form rather than impose it a priori. I admire the tradition of artists who express consciousness indirectly in the medium and form of their work. For subject matter, I observe ordinary things to discover, and from what I have found, I make an image that, addressed through the eye, moves me. I’ve been influenced by a very many artists but even a short list will always include Cezanne, Giorgio Morandi, and Louisa MaIhiasdottir. Other influences include the writers Roger Fry, Clement Greenberg, Jed Perl and Karen Wilkin.”
Dr. Gerald Cupchik (Canada)
University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Specialist in Imagination, Emotions and Aesthetic Reception > Gerald C. Cupchik is a professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto Scarborough. His research focuses on imagination, emotion, aesthetic, and design processes, using quantitative and qualitative methods to elucidate underlying processes across Eastern and Western cultures. He explores the roots of creative imagination in science and the arts by working closely with practitioners and those who interpret or utilize their works. His goal is to develop unified models which account for imagination and emotion.
Prof. Cupchik analyzes people’s sensitivity to works of art and the emotions they feel during the artistic encounters. He is the author of numerous publications, including the book The Aesthetics of Emotion: Up the Down Staircase of the Mind-Body (2017, Cambridge University Press). In 2010, he was awarded the Rudolf Arnheim Prize (American Psychological Association); and in 2018, the Gustav Fechner Prize (International Association for Empirical Aesthetics).
Shelley Horton-Trippe (United States)
Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States
Shelley Horton-Trippe was born and raised in Oklahoma City where she attended the same public high school as Ed Ruscha and Elizabeth Warren. While attending graduate school at the University of Oklahoma, Horton-Trippe was influenced by visiting/studied artists, Robert Irwin, Robert Morris, Elenor Antin and her professor, Donald Lipski. More »
"As a painter, I have experienced the moment when paint, color, texture transcends its physicality and becomes something else. Artists, musicians, poets know this state of being-when process becomes all, when the encapsulated experience of creation becomes universal-timeless." More »
Website > https://shelleyhortontrippe.com
Vicky Neumann (Colombia)
https://www.galeriaelmuseo.com/archives/287/
Vicky Neumann is one of the important artists of Colombia. She is represented by the best galleries in her country.
Vicky Neumann demeure l’une des artistes importantes de la Colombie. Elle est représentée par les meilleures galeries de son pays.
Vicky Neumann was born in 1963 in Barranquilla, Colombia. She studied Fine Arts at the School of Fine Arts in Barranquilla, as well as at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, Italy, and Mairie de Paris, France.
In 2018, the Museo Rayo in Roldanillo, Valle del Cauca, held a retrospective of her work entitled Vicky Neumann. In 2017 he showed his most recent works in the exhibition Doméstico Alterado at Galería El Museo, Bogotá. In 2015 she presented the exhibition, Juventud sin divino tesoro at the Universidad Nacional in Bogotá and in 2012 the exhibition Vicky Neumann, at the Museo de Arte de Caldas in Manizales, among others. His works are part of important national and international collections, including Delaware Art Museum, United States, Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, California, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Bogotá and Museo de Caldas, Manizales.
The artworks of Colombian artist Vicky Neumann present a contemporary reality, which is disconcerting to some viewers because of its fresh, haughty, creative, and innovative language. From a chromatic and compositional point of view, Neumann's work delves into the subject of the paintings in a different order, oriented and reformulated as a pretext to paint.
The artist's works become compositions that incorporate cut canvases, reconfigured paintings, and, particularly, Clementina's embroideries. These works require attention and attention; beyond the colors and the drama of the gesture, there is a reality that is perceived in the transformed landscape, in the threads that tell a story. Vicky Neumann gathers, as a visual and plastic homage, elements that challenge her from the daily life of Clementina, from her environment, and from the bond built between the two of them.
Milly Ristvedt, RCA
Milly Ristvedt was born in Kimberley, B.C. and studied at the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University). She began her art practice in Toronto and had her first exhibition there in 1968 with the Carmen Lamanna Gallery. Her work was included in the 7th Biennial of Canadian Painting at the National Gallery of Canada and the 3rd International Pioneer Galleries Exhibition at Musee Cantonal, Lausanne and Musee d’Art Moderne, Paris during this period. During a three-year period in Montreal, from 1970 to 1973, Ristvedt was a founding member of Véhicule Art Inc., the first artist-run centre in Montreal, and had a solo exhibition at the Musee d’Art Contemporain de Montréal.
Since 1968 Ristvedt has had more than fifty solo exhibitions, including a travelling ten-year survey exhibition in 1978 organized by the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, and her work has been included in national and international exhibitions. She has received grants for her work from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, and in 2012 was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for her service as Advocacy Representative for the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.
Her work can be found in the collections of the Canada Council Art Bank, Art Gallery of Ontario, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Vancouver Art Gallery, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Glenbow Museum, Musee d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and Harvard University, amongst others. In 2011, Ristvedt earned a Master’s degree in Art History from Queen’s University, with her thesis, Reinhardt, Martin, Richter: Colour in the Grid of Contemporary Painting.
More links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milly_Ristvedt
https://oenogallery.com/artists/milly-ristvedt-rca/
Gregg Simpson
Vancouver, Canada
https://www.greggsimpson.com/
Gregg Simpson stands as a celebrated figure in the realms of art and music, his prolific career earning critical acclaim across continents. His paintings, drawings, and works on paper have graced galleries and exhibitions in Canada, the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia. A distinctive voice in modern art, Simpson’s oeuvre has been enshrined in academic studies, art history books, and journals published worldwide, from Canada to Europe and Australia. His contributions have been showcased in pivotal historical surveys on surrealism and abstraction, cementing his legacy as a visionary of his time.
Nestled on Bowen Island, British Columbia, near Vancouver, Simpson’s studio is both a sanctuary and a crucible of creativity, surrounded by the serene natural beauty that often echoes in his work. His art resides in prestigious museum, university, and public collections around the globe, a testament to its universal resonance.
Beyond his visual creations, Simpson’s artistic endeavors extend to the written word and the screen. He authored Luminous Desires in 1975, a work that reflects his interdisciplinary spirit. His creations have been featured in television and film, bridging the boundaries between mediums. A tireless advocate for the arts, Simpson has received numerous grants and awards and played a vital role in founding several art and music organizations, fostering a vibrant cultural landscape that continues to flourish.
Lori Victor (Canada)
Ottawa, Canada
https://www.lorivictor.com
Lori Victor, a full-time visual artist in Ottawa, Canada, has exhibited since 2006. Her practice includes and often integrates installation, painting, photography and video. Lori's work questions and reflects subjects such as cultural history, identity, and the environment/climate change. She creates hand-constructed representational or abstracted shapes and forms, and uses accessible materials like found and manipulated objects. Her abstract paintings include both organically and mechanically painted imagery. Often her canvas is used as a material to manipulate through cutting and folding rather than just as a support. Much of her work evolves from systems theory – the knowledge that we are all a part of a larger whole – both physically and metaphorically.
Lori completed an MFA at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2017, and earned a BFA from the University of Ottawa in 2011.
Marc Adornato (Canada)
Contemporary Art | Adornato Contemporary Fine Art | Canada
Marc Adornato is a non-religious, Italian-Canadian contemporary artist based in Ottawa, Canada. His subversive and provocative art practice consists of dark and dystopian subjects, but often with a satirical, playful, irreverent twist.
Pollution & climate change, domestic terrorism & gun violence, state surveillance, wealth inequality, and Capitalism-gone-wrong are regular motifs in his paintings, street art, performances, sculptures, and videos. Adornato also explores a wide range of other mediums and disciplines including building instruments, music, assemblage furniture, mischievous pranks, and more.
His work resides in the permanent art collections of the City of Ottawa, the Diefenbunker Museum, as well as several prominent private collections across Canada, Italy, China, and Spain. Adornato has also received grants and awards including the Artist Production Grant from the City of Ottawa in 2018 for his most recent medieval painting series, Dystopia Rising.
Career highlights include solo exhibitions at the Diefenbunker Museum (2018), The Ottawa Art Gallery Annexe (2016), group exhibitions at the Bank of Canada’s Currency Museum (2007), the Canadian War Museum (2006), and a 7-year (ongoing) residency at the politically contentious gastro pub, UNION 613 in Ottawa.
For more information, visit Contemporary Art | Adornato Contemporary Fine Art | Canada
Michel V. Cheff (Canada)
Michel V. Cheff has, for many years, contributed to the development of various cultural organizations, educational institutions and museums. He has participated in the work of boards of directors, governance and strategic planning committees, acquisitions, exhibitions and programming committees, grants and award juries and has conducted art critique sessions.
He was curator of the exhibition Hommage à Dallaire: Que la fête commence !, marking the centenary of the birth of Hull’s artist, Jean-Philippe Dallaire, presented at the Galerie Montcalm, Gatineau, in 2016. In 2018 he curated the first phase of the exhibition Suzanne Joubert: 30 ans de forêts. He is currently curatorial advisor on the AT HOME exhibition project about the Danish painter Wilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916), a project led by the Ottawa photographer Leslie Hossack. The exhibition will be presented in 2021.
Michel V. Cheff taught drawing and art history at Algonquin College, the Ottawa School of Art and the Université du Quebec à Hull (1970-1980); he was Education Officer and Head of Educational Services at the National Gallery of Canada (1974-1988), Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Services at the Musée du Québec (1988-1993), Executive Director of the Winnipeg Art Gallery (1993-1998) and Director, Special Initiatives in the Office of the CEO, Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation, Gatineau (1998-2011). Between 1984 and 2010, Michel was involved in numerous museum and visual arts associations. He has served as President of the Canadian Museums Association and as President of the Canadian Art Museum Directors Organization.
Michel holds a Diploma in Creative Arts from Sheridan College, Oakville (1970), an Honors BA in Visual Arts from the University of Ottawa (1974) and an MA in Art History from the Université de Montréal. His thesis focused on Le dessin chez Jean-Philippe Dallaire (1916-1965) jusqu’en 1938 (1983). Mr. Cheff studied andragogy at the Université du Québec à Hull in the late 1970s, Italian at the University of Ottawa in the 1980s, and theology at the Dominican University College in Ottawa between 2000 and 2008. Michel V. Cheff lives in Ottawa.