Vaughn Gillson, an artist, based in Toronto, Canada, practices with the discipline of classical form and media to define contemporary imagery within a carefully structured setting. Her paintings and drawings are produced with the technical craftsmanship of 17th and 18th century art, from which she extracts their sensitivity to relationships and context.
Her strong interest in visual spectacle and cultural texture reflects on her background in design at the National Theatre School. Subsequent training in fine art took place in Toronto and New York and helped to re-direct a shift from art created for real time and space to the abstract reconstruction of a moment held in painting. Organized formal expression is the backbone of classical art and its overall design approach provided Vaughn with tools to integrate layers and iterations of sustained work that remains grounded in the senses.
Throughout her career, Vaughn has advanced her belief in the importance of primary art elements and principles and their effectiveness as vehicles for learning. Plans for a series of teachers' guides on art education began in 2000, arising from teaching assignments. The resulting program, Visual Language, is a comprehensive network of lessons presenting art concepts as motivation not only for expression but also for the formation of more general creative mental architecture.
In 2006 she opened Dizegno, Instruction for Visual Art, a gallery devoted to promoting "thinking with visual language". The gallery is located, along with her studio, in Mirvish Village, Toronto, Canada.

All images and text © the artist