Shawn Mahoney, Manny Schulz and Laura Porath | New Artists

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Laura Porath

From Left to Right: Shawn Mahoney, “Singing Stone,” 2021; Manny Schulz, “Prairie Skies,” 2023; Laura Porath, “From Within,” 2024

From Left to Right: Brodaglio Marble, 21”x9”x5.5”; acrylic on canvas, 20”x20”; Chlorite, 11”x15”x10”

Meet and Greet our New Artists, First Friday: June 7, 2024, 5:00 PM - 9:00 pm.

Shawn Mahoney: ​I desire is to transform stone boulders and blocks into movement and messages.  These works are derived from his process of examining the shape the stone offers, sketching out a form, removing as much of the internal mass as possible while still maintaining the outer shape. 

​The end result presents the rock in a light airy form of motion.  Each piece is sculpted to enjoy the stone that was originally created long ago, it’s color, striations, shades and form, inside and out. 

​​​​It is in the sanding and polishing stage that it becomes apparent to me what the form represents.  Thoughts, set deep in his subconscious, are those which unknowingly influence the process and in the final stages present a message in the form of a stone sculpture. 

Each piece is named and that name comes from the message revealed.  Of course, as these are only my impressions and the pieces are abstract in nature, you may be inspired to see something completely different. 

Enjoy the art, enjoy the journey.

Manny Schulz: We live in a world of contradiction and change. Manny is drawn to our epic Canadian landscape, but also the clean lines of modern urban architecture. While generally maintaining a realist artistic style, Manny has also begun creating abstract artwork to complement his body of work. The intention with all his artwork is to earnestly represent a scene, an emotion, a point in time.

Laura Porath: 

Laura Porath is fascinated with nature, the bizarre, and all things humorous. Her work is primarily figurative stone sculpture and abstract paintings. Laura's shift to contemporary art began with an art class at the University of Manitoba that she took as a stepping stone to take her life in a different direction. Instantly she was hooked; before she knew it, she had finished an honours degree with a thesis in sculpture. 

Laura approaches sculpting as a conversation with the stone. She seeks out the material's potential to find what the stone has to offer and how she can work with it to create a powerful and evocative piece. Laura likes to work with strong symbolism to enhance the narrative for the viewer. She has always had a compulsive urge to give inanimate objects anthropomorphic features and is obsessed with hybrids of any kind. Combining elements that aren’t typically paired together has also always interested her, hence the hybrid obsession; you can find this in both her sculptures and her paintings.  

When she creates her paintings, the aim is for them to be pleasing and unexpected to the eye. Laura attempts this with colour, form, movement, and illusion of light. She is always up for trying something new, whether it is in art or in any facet of life. With her paintings she is always experimenting. Life is full of routine which makes time pass quicker and feels boring and redundant -- trying something new is exciting and gets her dopamine flowing. It also makes time feel like it is passing slower, allowing her to enjoy every moment of life a little bit more. 

Her urge to create comes out in every aspect of her life. It can be satisfied simply by building a stretcher for a painting or cooking a beautiful meal from scratch. It is the need to create that gives Laura passion for life.

She strives to create art that will stop the viewer in their tracks either by the visual strength or the powerful imagery of the piece. In this increasingly busy and content saturated world, Laura wants to captivate and encourage wonder and contemplation.