People always want to know how long it takes to paint someone or something....for Sharon Matthews it has taken her lifetime.

With a background of over 30 years of industry experience as an illustrator, designer, teacher and art director, Sharon Matthews is an accomplished, Toronto-based, artist who has recently turned her attention towards portraiture and fine art. She works in mixed media to convey the subtle facets of character, time and transition in her subjects.

Painting the unseen forces within and around us is a great challenge and is what Sharon does each time she paints or draws. She approaches the enigmatic quality of each individual and then brilliantly communicates the nature of the person with the language of lines, shapes, space and colour, to great acclaim.

An award winning graduate of Sheridan College, including Governor General’s Silver metal for “Best-of-Year”, her career began with 6 years at McGraw-Hill Ryerson as a designer and art director, followed by fifteen years as the VP and Art Director for Matthews Communications Design, which she co-founded. During these years she received invitations to teach at Sheridan College, Banff Centre Publishing Workshop and Max the Mutt, Toronto (a private animation school).

It has been said, that what makes Sharon exceptional is her unique ability to translate words into images, this same skill is now evident in her portrait and fine art work.