EDD BAPTISTA
Edd Baptista was born in the Philippines and immigrated to Canada as a child in 1977. He graduated from the Ontario College of Art (now OCADU) with a scholarship in 1989 and like many artists before him went to work in the advertising industry, establishing himself as an art director throughout the 1990’s and 2000’s. As his commercial career wound down, he circled back to painting. His work has been exhibited in group shows at 2gallery, Aird Gallery, Gallery 1313 and The Lexington Art League. He has won awards in many competitions, including NEXT, Arts and Letters Club of Toronto (Toronto 2017 and 2020), the Figureworks Exhibition (Ottawa 2016) and Best of Show, Artist Network (2016). When first launching his paintings, Edd was selected as an Emerging Artist at the Artist Project (Toronto 2016).
Edd’s return to paintings began with representation of figures wrestling and moving. The paintings were monochromatic with hints of colour sneaking in. Portraits followed the wrestlers as he began to explore bold colours, and experimented with textures, surfaces and sculptural displays. The pandemic derailed his momentum in painting the human form. He has always wanted to paint the landscape and the pandemic gave him the opportunity to do so.
