(1966 — )
The Dodo Bird always wanted to be a commercial pilot. A high school teacher informed him that he would always be a flightless creature – a Dodo Bird – because of his failing grades. He proved the teacher wrong and has been a Bush pilot in Northern Ontario and the Arctic for the past 37 years. Teaching himself how to draw, paint, and sculpt in the remote regions of Canada, his drawings indicate the latitude and longitude where he has hidden carvings for curious explorers to find. You might find a Dodo Bird sticker in the strangest places: at the beach in Florida, a railing in Venice, on a street corner in Toronto. But…who is this guy? And what’s with the forks in his paintings?

(1910 –1990)
Arthur Villeneuve was raised in a working-class family in Chicoutimi, Québec. Leaving school at age fourteen, he worked at a paper mill before becoming a barber. His prosperity ended with the death of his first wife; he remarried and lived with his seven children in a modest house in Chicoutimi. Villeneuve taught himself to paint and, from 1950, he covered his house with painted images and created thousands of paintings. He received the Order of Canada in 1972.

Collections: National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Québec City; Villeneuve House, Pulperie de Chicoutimi, Québec; Musée d’Art Singulier Contemporain, Mansonville, Québec.

Filmography: Villeneuve: peintre-barbier (National Film Board of Canada, 1972).

(1914 –1976)
Frank Travis was born in Toronto and grew up in a Catholic orphanage. He began drawing at the age of eleven and later studied technical drawing but failed to complete his training. He worked in a variety of jobs until he joined the Canadian Air Force in 1941. He began art studies after the war but his mental health deteriorated. Travis was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was thirty-five and was confined to a psychiatric hospital where he produced hundreds of drawings in graphite and chalk. Fascinated with the human body, Travis’s work depicts robotic bodies equipped with mechanical devices.

Collections: Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne; Western University, London, Ontario.

(1956 —)

Pandora left his home in Ontario at the age of fourteen and lived on the street for much of his life. He was part of the punk music scene in Vancouver in the late 1970s but gave it up for painting. He works at a harm reduction centre in the Downtown East Side of Vancouver, a cause he is passionate about. Pandora paints almost daily, working on multiple canvases at the same time so his brain doesn’t get too crowded.

1933 —)

Anthony Joseph AuCoin began writing poetry in his teens and took up painting at the age of sixty-six after retiring from his job as a raker on a road-paving crew. He lives on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, and is a devoted harness racing fan.

(1967 —)
Sylvain Martel started drawing as a child and went on to study graphic design at Cégep du Vieux Montréal. He works at a silkscreen shop in Montreal and spends all his free time drawing.

Collections: Musée d’Art Singulier Contemporain, Mansonville, Québec.

(1927–1977)
Kurelek was the son of Ukrainian immigrant parents who farmed in Alberta and Manitoba. He obtained a BA degree in general arts and then enrolled at the Ontario College of Art. He was forced to drop out due to mental health issues. He later attended an art centre in Mexico and travelled to Europe where his mental health deteriorated further. He was treated for schizophrenia in England and the Netherlands before returning to Canada.

A prolific painter, his works illustrate both depression-era farming scenes and troubling depictions of his struggles with mental health.

Key collections: National Gallery of Canada, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Niagara Falls Art Gallery, Ukrainian Museum of Canada, and multiple provincial art museums.

(1933 – 2008)
Roger Ing was born in a village outside of Guangzhou, China, and emigrated to Regina, Saskatchewan, in 1950. He worked in his father’s restaurant before he opened the New Utopia Café, a popular hangout for artists and locals in Regina. Ing learned traditional bamboo brush painting as a child, and local artist Kenneth Lochhead introduced him to abstract expressionism, all of which led to his unique “Roger style.”

Ing participated in many exhibitions and had his first solo exhibition at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, in conjunction with a screening of the documentary Roger Ing’s Utopia (1998), about the artist and his work.

(1966 — )
Kevin House was born in the UK, raised mainly in Alberta, and now resides in Vancouver, BC. His work includes drawing, painting, writing, sculpture, stop-motion animation, and music. He finds inspiration in personal experience, storytelling traditions, ephemera, found objects, and history.

House has had numerous exhibitions in British Columbia and the United States. His work is highly sought after by dedicated fans. He has been featured in publications including The National Post, Bark Magazine, Geist, Globe and Mail, and Uncut.

Awards: 2014 Leo Awards nomination for Best Musical Score, Motion Picture, for the feature film Down River; NPR radio top ten of the year for the album World of Beauty (2009).

(1952 — )
Born in Montreal, Québec, Greaves studied theology and worked in the hotel business before turning his back on society in 1989 to construct a fantastical environment in the forest near Beauce, Québec. The project – a ramshackle village of 20 buildings created from found objects and abandoned buildings – continued until 2000. He left this land in 2009 and the site was later dismantled by his neighbours.