February 1999
Tad Suzuki
Tad Suzuki was born in Tokyo, Japan, and came to Canada in the early 80's. A self-taught artist, Suzuki has academic and professional backgrounds in ancient Near Eastern studies and librarianship. He started to paint "more seriously" in 1994. And since then he has shown his work in various exhibitions. He had his first solo exhibition in 1996 at University of Victoria, where he works as a part-time librarian. In the following year, his first commercial solo was held at Winchester Galleries in Victoria, British Columbia.
In the past three years, Suzuki has received several regional and international awards, including the Myfanwy Spencer Pavelic Award and the Daler-Rowney Purchase Prize. His work is included in private and corporate collections in Belgium, Canada, Switzerland, and the United States. Suzuki is represented by Kensington Gallery in Calgary and by Winchester Galleries in the rest of Canada. He and his spouse live in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
"Most of my paintings are realistic depictions of urban subjects. I particularly like capturing momentary rays of light in the mundane scenes around me. As a photo-realist, I work from at least one photograph(usually several prints). I directly project images on canvas using a tracer, and make a very rough sketch. I make several revisions of sketches before I reach a relatively sharp under drawing. Then I lay thin layers of acrylic washes to finish. The process takes anywhere from three to six weeks.
My inspirations mostly come from the subjects themselves. But I admire modern realistic painters such as Richard Estes, Ralph Goings, John Register, and Mary Pratt, as well as not-so-modern artists such as Canaletto, Hokusai,Hiroshige, and Hopper."
For more information about the artist or to inquire about purchasing artwork, please write to:
Tad Suzuki
2821 Prior Street
Victoria, B.C.
Canada V8T 3Y2
(250) 385-9611
email: ut734@freenet.victoria.bc.ca
