Mancino is a professional painter whose passions for life and travel can be seen in her colourful and dramatic artworks.  Over the last 25 years, Mancino has developed a distinctive and innovative style using mixed media.  She brings a fresh and vibrant perspective to landscapes, people-scapes and abstractions.  Hardworking elegant women and the elderly are among the themes that capture her artistic imagination.  Although excited by abstraction, she often produces quasi-representational works.  As an experienced budget traveller, life in Asia is often the inspiration for her work.  She travels to paint and paints to travel.

She completed four years study at the Ontario College of Art, where her major influence was Chin Tok Tan.  She has studied experimental art at the Haliburton School of Fine Arts with Lila Lewis Irving, John Leonard, Denis Cliff and Peter Kolisnyk.  She spent a month at Belles Artes Institute in San Miguel, Mexico studying with Helen Koffee.

Her art is inspired by the Canadian wilderness and by back-packing travels in Asia and North Africa.  While travelling, she paints 'en plein air'.  Curious onlookers often engulf her, trying to communicate in many different languages.  A natural story teller, Shirley has fascinating tales to recount about her art adventures e.g. painting while sitting on the floor in the Delhi airport at 1 am while waiting for a delayed flight; or being bumped by a wandering and curious cow while painting in a bus station in Karnataka, India.  At home, she works more with larger paintings experimenting with combinations of media, technique and subject matter.

She won the Juror's Choice Award, Toronto Watercolour Society (2000).  Best of Show, First Place in Mixed Media and in Watercolour and the People's Choice Award (Rideau Valley Art Festival 1996).  With 25 years experience as an adult educator, she delivers clear, succinct and joyful workshops and presentations to art associations and public groups.  She has also served as an art juror, a professional art critic and demonstrator.

Mancino is represented by Latitude 44, Toronto, Ontario; Gallery Studio 737, Tweed, Ontario; The Cambridge Design Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario; Shafali Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario; The Tay River Gallery, Perth, Ontario; The Agnes Etherington Gallery Art Rental and Sales, Kingston and the Raymond Gallery, Kingston, Ontario.  Click on Links for information on these galleries.

 ©Shirley Mancino 2008