BIO

Geoff Farnsworth (b. 1968, Kimberley, B.C.) began his art training in Vancouver, B.C. in classes at the Federation of Canadian Artists, Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and in the Graphic Design & Illustration Program at Capilano University.

Influential teacher and painter, Kiff Holland encouraged Geoff to apply to the Art Students League of New York as he began looking for a full-time painting program. Geoff was immediately drawn to The Art Students League’s teaching method with it being deeply rooted in the 19th-century French atelier system.

Relocating to New York City to train at the Art Students League from 1997 to 2002, Farnsworth painted from the live human model in several figurative realist classes before working in the abstract painting studios of William Scharf and Frank O’Cain. Painting in the studio of William Scharf, who had been the studio assistant and protégé to Mark Rothko; a direct line of New York Abstract Expressionism began to meld into his figurative work with a spirit for process, experimentation, and colour. Exploring linocuts and monotypes in Richard Pantell’s printmaking studio prompted new approaches in his painting.

In 2002, he was drawn to Toronto where his sister, an artist and his aunt, a writer both live. Painting in Toronto for the next five years concentrated his studio art practice and direction. A year in Thunder Bay after this instilled an appreciation for nature which began to appear more in his paintings.

Geoff currently lives and paints in St. Catharines in the Niagara region. He taught part-time for eleven years in the Graphic Design Program at Niagara College, and teaches occasionally at the Willow Arts Community. He served on the board for the Niagara Artists Centre, and has been a guest artist at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts where his work has been exhibited and published through Small Walker Press.

His paintings have been shown in Vancouver, Toronto, Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, Niagara, New York City, Washington DC, Minneapolis, Sweden, Norway, and Trinidad.

“My paintings explore a relationship between figurative and abstraction in order to meld unconscious probing and stylistic innovation with a meditative figural base.  It is important to me that the paintings work well as collections of shape, colour, texture, and energy, while also building a compelling image. Working with people and objects from my personal world, I focus on maintaining a balance between plan and accident, known and unknown, restraint and exuberance.  My figures look out as much into mindscape as landscape.”