Randy Hryhorczuk is a Canadian artist based in Whitby, Ontario, focussed on oil painting and linocut printmaking. With over 25 years of experience, Randy paints portraits, abstracts, still life (including pay phones and mall rides), and urban landscapes (featuring billboards and street scenes) from his art studio. He has participated in community-based arts groups, initiatives, art fairs, and juried art exhibitions as artist and member of organizing teams.
As an established artist member with Vibe Arts in Toronto, Randy conducts multi-media art workshops, and teaches painting and portfolio building workshops through Station Gallery in Whitby, Ontario. Randy is a collector of Canadian artists’ work, emphasizing the importance of artist to artist support in order to strengthen the broader creative community while building vital relationships.
Randy’s artwork has been collected throughout Canada, the United States, Great Britain, and Guatemala. He has exhibited his paintings at art galleries and fairs since 2000 in Canada, the United States, and Germany. He has received recognition, including the Silver Award from The Oshawa Art Associations (51st Annual Art Exhibition, 209) at Robert McLaughlin Gallery for his oil painting “Give This to Jack and Alice“, which portrays his baba and her two sisters on their family farm in Manitoba.
I grew up in the wild rural countryside of B.C.’s lower mainland, surrounded by forests and rivers. I explored the woods, playing make-believe among the trees. I skateboarded lonely country roads, and hiked the woods. My love of comic books, cartoons, and music fuelled my creativity from an early age.
In the late 1990s, I rented my first art studio in downtown Vancouver – a small storage room with a single window above the stage in a former ballroom known for its jazz and later, punk rock shows. To access the studio, I had to climb up steep, makeshift stairs and squeeze through a narrow hatch. In the small space, I tacked my canvas to the wall, painted feverishly, and brought it out of the space to stretch and varnish. The historic building was later consumed by fire.
Struggling with overcast skies, dampness, and rainy days, I decided to move to Toronto Ontario, to focus on painting. I stayed at the Backpackers Hostel at King Street and Spadina Avenue for a month before moving into an apartment at (formerly) The Heartbreak Hotel on Queen Street West, where I began painting my first figure paintings outside of Vancouver. Toronto’s vibrant visual arts community welcomed me into exhibitions and art openings. I was energized.
Over the first few years, I went to Media Design School, worked a little, painted a lot, went to see bands played at bars and clubs and theatres. I danced. I walked everywhere. I made friends. I lived. I rarely had money, buy always found a way to get through. In late 2003 I began working with Galleries in Toronto, and involved myself in art shows.
Fast forward. In mid 2007, my wife and I decided to seek new adventures. We relocated to Guatemala City, where I spent my time drawing, painting, reading, and visiting museums. I was fascinated by the towering billboards lining the city streets, and I began creating a body of urban landscape paintings that featured the billboards as my subject. I replaced advertising with words of encouragement, hope, and social commentary.
Returning to Toronto in 2009, I continued exploring unusual subjects such as mall rides, vintage cars, and pay-phones that drew on my fascination with memory and childhood. I became increasingly interested in overlooked spaces and objects that were generally disregarded. These everyday objects continue to inform my art work today. My focus was oil painting, but I enjoyed linocut print making. The DIY nature of hand made printing allowed me to explore a different side of my creative process.
Throughout my career, my art has been influenced by my lived experiences and surroundings. From my nature filled childhood adventures to the urban landscapes of cities around the world, my work reflects my ongoing exploration of the world around me.
Oil paintings by Randy Hryhorczuk are available at Canvas Gallery in Toronto Ontario, and online through Saatchi Art and Etsy. Graphic T-Shirt designs are available on Teepublic and Threadless.