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Shirley 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, she has developed a distinctive and innovative style using mixed media. Shirley 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 frequently produces quasi-representational works. As an experienced budget traveler, life in Asia is often the inspiration for her work. She travels to paint and paints to travel.

Shirley 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 also 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 backpacking travels in Asia and North Africa. While travelling, Shirley paints ‘en plein air’. Curious onlookers often engulf her, trying to communicate in many different languages. A natural storyteller, Shirley has fascinating tales to recount about her art adventures, e.g. painting while sitting on the floor in the Delhi airport at 1 a.m. 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 on larger canvases, experimenting with combinations of media, technique and subject matter.

Shirley 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.

 She is represented by Latitude 44, Toronto, Ontario; Gallery Studio 737, Tweed, Ontario; The Cambridge Design Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario;  The Agnes Etherington Gallery Art Rental & Sales, and the Raymond Gallery, both in Kingston, Ontario; and Artemisia Gallery, Westport.