BIOGRAPHY
Virginia Fifield’s art career began in 1979, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from York University (Toronto, Canada). Immediately she was hired as Head Assistant and Master Class teaching assistant at the Banff School of Fine Arts. After one year, she returned to Toronto to pursue her career as a professional fine artist. There her work was exhibited with two commercial galleries in Toronto for over 5 years. She was awarded numerous grants and her work is held in public and private collections.
Despite her success, she returned to school to study architecture at the University of Toronto. During her third year she left school to pursue an exciting opportunity to work in urban planning with Harborfront Corporation, a public company set up to develop 92 acres of Toronto’s central urban waterfront of mixed use parks, housing, retail, theaters and art galleries.
In 1991, she moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where she developed a deeper respect and interest in the environment and especially Florida’s magnificent and fragile wetlands. Inspired, she returned to her first passion of art with a series of charcoal drawings that are stark images of birds/ animals at a human scale. Through these drawings she hopes to portray the deeper richness and the unique value of these magnificent creatures. Fifield attempts to make us aware of our responsibility to them and our environment.
In 1996, she moved to the New Orleans area where she began to exhibit this new body of work. She gained recognition by winning awards in almost every juried exhibition she entered.
Since returning to Florida in 1999, she has continued to exhibit and win awards including, Best in Show in ArtBravo 2006 and ArtFlorida 08 & Art Florida10, Best in Painting /Drawing. Her recent 2009 solo exhibitions at the Ellen Charapko Gallery and the Art & Culture Center of Hollywood have received critical acclaim. Currently Fifield’s artwork is exhibited at the Opera Gallery www.operagallery.com.
She was recently featured on The PBS TV show ARTSTREET< SAVE THE HORSES
