Fleurs d'abricot

About Fleurs d'abricot

This contemporary oil painting is a still life of flowers created by Jennifer Hornyak.

Jennifer Hornyak’s beautiful artwork once shared wall space at a prestigious exhibit in Paris with the iconic paintings of Modigliani and Picasso.
For decades, the Canadian artist has honoured the revolutionary artistic style of the Fauvists, a 20th-century art movement in France that favoured rich, saturated colours in their expressionistic work. Hornyak’s flowers lay somewhere between figuration and abstraction in form; their vivid colours often contrasting against a dark background. This bouquet is rendered in a pretty apricot colour, which stands out against the dark gray vase and the deep blue background.
Hornyak usually begins each painting with a sketch and then experiments with acrylics as a foundation for the oil painting that follows. In the past few years, much of her art has explored floral themes. But for Hornyak, flowers are not ‘just flowers’—they are metaphors for life.

“I do many layers again…using collage to a great extent…using the abstract shapes that are dear to me in a smaller way.” Jennifer Hornyak

Jennifer Hornyak studied at the Grimsby School of Art in England. In 1961, she moved to Montreal, where she attended McGill University, the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal and the Centre Saidye Bronfman. Hornyak has exhibited throughout North America and Europe, including the prestigious Paris World Exhibition in 1987. Hornyak’s work is represented in many private and corporate collections, including Bombardier Transport, Burroughs Wellcome, McCarthy Tétrault, Power Corporation and Hyatt Regency Hotel.