Ester Pugliese is a Canadian artist whose work can be found in private and public collections in North America and Europe. A graduate of York University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Specialized Honours) in painting and drawing, Pugliese is the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships including the Canadian Italian Business & Professional Association Scholarship from the BCI Bank of Italy, and the Humber College Board of Governors Achievement Award with her post-graduate certificate in Arts Administration/Cultural Management. She undertook an intensive year of self-directed research and studio work in the prestigious BA Fine Art Program at Leeds University in England through York International’s exchange program, culminating in a public degree show at Bretton Hall College of Education, now the site of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in West Bretton.
Her works have been acquired by the Donovan Collection, Capital One, Microsoft and a number of private collectors. Her exhibitions have been reviewed in the Globe and Mail, featured on ArtSync TV and included as a destination in the 2012 Canadian Art Gallery Hop. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Orillia Museum of Art & History, Glenhyrst Art Gallery of Brant, the Joseph D. Carrier Gallery and the MacLaren Arts Centre. Pugliese exhibited with loop Gallery between 2011 and 2019, and her work is currently available through Partial Gallery.
Pugliese’s multilayered mixed media paintings employ a coral reef aesthetic to reimagine Vanitas still life painting with a contemporary sense of immersive space while exploring the irreconcilable nature of our culture’s materialistic urges and our desire to protect the natural world we live in.
Selected Solo & Two-Person Exhibitions
2017 Loop Gallery, ‘Measured Calm,’ Toronto, Canada
2013 Loop Gallery, ‘Disfluency and Delay,’ Toronto, Canada
2012 Loop Gallery, ‘False Relations and Fractions,’ Toronto, Canada
2011 Loop Gallery, ‘Empirical Spaces,’ Toronto, Canada
2008 AWOL Gallery, ‘hush,’ Toronto, Canada
Selected Group Exhibitions
2023 Aird Gallery, ‘ABSTRACTS’ online exhibition, curated by Gary Evans, Toronto, Canada
2020 Curated Toronto Art, ‘Curated’ online art sale, operated by Shari Orenstein and Hesty Leibtag,
Toronto, Canada
2019 Canadian Art in Isolation, at Castleview Wychwood Towers Long Term Care Home, Toronto,
Canada
2019 Loop Gallery, ‘loop at large,’ Toronto, Canada
2019 AWOL Collective, ‘it’s not me, it’s you,’ Toronto, Canada
2019 Earls Court Gallery, ‘Pigments,’ curated by Aurora Cacioppo, Hamilton, Canada
2019 918 Bathurst, ‘Solstizio,’ A Celebration of Italian-Canadian Culture, Toronto, Canada
2019 MacLaren Art Centre, ‘Benefactor Art Exchange Exhibition,’ Barrie, Canada
2017 Gladstone Hotel, ‘Why The @#&! Do You Paint?: All the Colours,’ curated by Spencer J. Harrison
and Lukus Toane, Toronto, Canada
2017 Orillia Museum of Art & History, ‘Carmichael Canadian Landscape Exhibition: Tradition
Transformed,’ curated by Scott Sawtell and Renee van der Avoird, Orillia, Canada
2017 TA2 Sound & Music, Toronto, Canada
2017 Loop Gallery at 50 Edwin Ave, ‘Anxious Space: An Offsite Exhibition,’ curated by Salena
Barry, Toronto, Canada
2017 Capital One North York Office, ‘A Natural Complex,’ curated by Kelly McKenzie, Toronto,
Canada
2017 Gallery 555, ‘Day Trip: A Group Painting Exhibition,’ Toronto, Canada
2017 Art Gallery of Mississauga, ’14th Annual Fine Art Auction Exhibition,’ Mississauga, Canada
2017 MacLaren Art Centre, ‘Benefactor Art Exchange Exhibition,’, Barrie, Canada
2017 Propeller Gallery, ‘Live Longer, Piss Off Your Heirs,’ curated by Olga Korper and Taiga
Lipson, Toronto, Canada
2016 Station Gallery, ‘Glimpse,’ juried by Kelly McCray, Steven Schwartz and Shelagh
Stewart, Whitby, Canada
2016 Forest City Gallery, ‘Keepers,’ London, Canada
2016 Loop Gallery, ‘Sweet Summer Sixteen,’ Toronto, Canada
2012 Loop Gallery, ‘Collective Vision,’ Toronto, Canada
2007 Junction Arts Festival, ‘flock,’ Toronto, Canada
2003 Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto, Canada
2003 Joseph D. Carrier Gallery, ‘Identità,’ Columbus Centre, Toronto, Canada
2002 Glenhyrst Art Gallery of Brant, ‘Identità,’ Brantford, Canada
2002 Circa Gallery, ‘Form,’ Toronto, Canada
2002 Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto, Canada
2001 Junction Arts Festival, Toronto, Canada
2001 Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto, Canada
2000 Leeds University, Bretton Hall College, ‘Degree Exhibition: bonds/boundaries/barriers,’
Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, UK
Awards
2004 Board of Governors Achievement Award, Humber College
2004 Academic Award of Excellence, Humber College
2001 Continuing Student Scholarship, York University
1999 Canadian Italian Business & Professional Association Scholarship, BCI Bank of Italy
1999 Susan Mann Award for Academic Exchange, York International
1999 Tuition Scholarship for Academic Exchange, York International
1996 Vicki Greenberg Art Award, Etobicoke School of the Arts
1996 OAC, Visual Art Scholarship Award, Etobicoke Board of Education
1994 Photography Achievement Award, Etobicoke School of the Arts
Auctions
2017 Art Gallery of Mississauga, ’14th Annual Fine Art Auction,’ Mississauga, Canada
Public Collections
Capital One, Toronto, Canada
Donovan Collection at the University of St. Michael’s College, Toronto, Canada
Microsoft Canada, Toronto, Canada