Ikebana 13 (Hoover)
More Works By Toni Hamel Oil On Canvas 2025
16 × 16 in
40.64 × 40.64 cm
FRAMED
17.5 × 17.5 in
44.45 × 44.45 cm
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Share by EmailAbout Ikebana 13 (Hoover)
This contemporary oil painting by Toni Hamel has an environmental theme.The engaging and thought-provoking work of Canadian artist Toni Hamel has attracted the attention of an impressive international audience. Hamel’s work often straddles several genres including surrealism and neo-classicism.
Her artwork is rooted in storytelling that is often wrapped in humour to convey important messages about topics like societal standards and status of the natural environment.
This is one of a series of paintings named for the Japanese art of flower arranging, ‘ikebana’. In this piece, we see a comical image of a woman in an apron covered dress (late 1950’s-60’s era) using an old canister style Hoover vacuum to clean the interior of a giant red striped tulip. The colour palette is fresh and modern–sky blues, red, white, and green.
“This is another painting from the "Ikebana" series, a small batch of works which include the "blood tulip" as its main character. Although humorous at first glance, it's in fact a metaphor for our attempt to clean up the environmental mess we have and continue to create.” Toni Hamel
Toni Hamel was born in Italy in 1961. In the early 1980s, she acquired a BFA from the Accademia di Belle Arti of Lecce in Italy. Upon arriving in Canada, she furthered her studies and attained a post-graduate Certificate in Computer Graphics from Sheridan College (Canada, 1991). The recipient of several awards, among others, she received the Golden Key National Honour Society Award from the University of Toronto (Specialist Programme in Psychology, 1997) and the Lubiam Prize (Milan, 1983).
Her work has been exhibited in public and commercial galleries in Canada, the USA, and Europe. It is included in the public collections of Mr. J.J. Abrams, Ms. Whoopi Goldberg, Ms. Julia Roberts, the Archives of Ontario/Government of Ontario, the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, the Omer DeSerres Corporation, as well as many private international collections. Toni Hamel lives and works in Kingston, Ontario.
