Carol Folino is a portrait painter whose dedication to mental health and social issues reflect a depth of emotions that reverberate off her canvases. The rawness with which she paints her subjects is inspiring and reveals how one’s pain can be turned into power.
Artist Biography
Born and raised in Kitchener-Waterloo, Carol Folino’s early years provided her with an intimate glimpse into the importance of art as an emotional outlet for mental well-being. Much of her artwork reflects her journey dealing with loss, grief, and anxiety over losing her mother as a young girl. However, that deep void has allowed her to tap into the emotional pain and courage of others’ personal stories. As a result, portraiture is the main focus of her paintings.
Her artwork has also shifted from just focusing on self-portraits to capturing the courageous experiences of the voiceless, such as healthcare workers and marginalized people. In particular, she often pairs images from the civil rights movement with portraits of individuals who are still fighting racial injustice and inequality.
Expressive faces, powerful text, turbulent water, cracked deserts, fluid lines, toxic smoke, vivid reflections, and breathtaking canyons are the images that consistently appear in her pieces and unify her body of work. Often, she incorporates significant text into her compositions either through gel transfers or hand painting to provide a historical and contemporary context for her images.
Her paintings are done in acrylic paint using vibrant colours, realistic portraiture and stylized nature elements.
Carol has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Waterloo where she studied both Fine Arts and History. She has a Bachelor of Education from University of Western Ontario.
She has been a local Art and History high school teacher for the Waterloo Region District School Board for over 20 years. She is married to a loving and supportive husband and has three wonderful sons.