Dana Cowie

Dana was born into a family of artists, fashion designers and musicians. At the age of  three, she was quite certain that she would become a painter. At 17, her painter  grandmother gifted her her oils, brushes, palette and easel with the proviso that she  make regular use of them.  

Dana sees the world around her as shapes of varying colour, tone and feeling. She uses a  palette knife to paint in the impasto technique (Italian for ‘mixture’), yielding a textured,  sculpted surface. Her abstracted Canadian landscapes and figurative works, predominately in oils, emerge as layers of colour overlapping in expressionist marks. When in the studio, Dana paints primarily upon her grandmother’s vintage 1940s easel.  

Born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario, Dana enrolled in the visual arts program at Central  Technical School in Toronto in the 1990s. It was then that she found she had a driving  need to paint. Dana lived in Toronto, Japan, Victoria, B.C. and Owen Sound, Ontario before settling in Collingwood, Ontario where she lives with her boyfriend and two  daughters. The surrounding natural landscapes, as well as scenes from her many travels,  are her main sources of inspiration.  

Dana’s work can be found in art galleries across Canada, the U.S. and England as well as  in numerous solo and group exhibiIons in those countries and collecIons worldwide.