Featured Artist: Paul Mantrop, Painter

As stated on his website www.paulmantrop.com, "Paul was born in 1968. He studied at the Ontario College of Art and then went to Florence, Italy, to continue his studies. Upon returning from Europe, Paul became a founding member of the painting group DRAWNONWARD. This group's active mandate is to explore Canada's landscape through painting. What started as a two-week canoe trip along the Montreal River has led the group to cover more than 100,000 kilometres of Canada's wilds. Travelling by retrofitted school bus, converted milk truck, train, fishing boat, ship, canoe, kayak, snowshoe and ski, drawnonward has journeyed between both shores of Canada. Touring the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Columbia; hiking the northern stretches the Yukon; traversing down the icy slopes of the Gaspe peninsula; cruising on a Russian exploration ship through the waters of Newfoundland and the Arctic - the group has strapped on paint boxes, carted supplies and put all of their journeys down on panels, paper and canvas."