Allan OMarra

I was born in 1947 in the eastern Ontario, Canada town of Domville and my primary and secondary education was completed in the Bancroft, Ontario region. In 1967 I began studies at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto and graduated in 1971 from the Communications and Design course, with principal interest in painting and photography. Over the following decades, I worked at various advertising and promotion jobs, in the Toronto area, in full and part-time positions – most recently as a promotions manager in the Corporate Marketing Department of Bank of Montreal. Throughout the years, I maintained a parallel career as a fine artist, showing in dozens of solo and group exhibitions. As well, I have self-published two books of poetry combined with black and white photography and an illustrated children’s book on the theme of meditation. Between 2001 and 2004 I trained at the Transpersonal Therapy in Toronto. And since May of 2007, I have been working full-time as a fine artist and psychotherapist from my home in Ajax, Ontario. In 2008, I began writing a monthly column for my local newspaper, Ajax / Pickering News Advertiser, in which I profile local artists. I also teach art on a volunteer basis at the Ontario Shores Mental Health Centre in Whitby, Ontario and have participated in the Durham Region artist-in-the-school ArtsSmarts program. In February 2010 I participated as a juror in the Conference Place Gallery The Art of Recovery open juried show. And in April 2010 was a jury of one for the annual open juried show at the Art Gallery of Bancroft, Ontario.

My work is primarily done in a high realist style using my own photography as reference. Over the 4 decades of my career, I have put together solo shows on specific themes, i.e.: several suites of paintings of Lake Ontario; a show called The Joy of Falling, a set of psychologically-challenging paintings and drawings of leaping and falling child figures; a show based on images from a specific Family Reunion; and Moments of Awakening, an exhibition with works that explored my spiritual quest as a Buddhist. My most recent completed series is My Landscapes, a return to my muse, the countryside around rural Bancroft, Ontario, where I grew up, and images from the environs of Ajax, Ontario where I presently reside. And I am presently embarking on a series of drawings and paintings I’m calling The Ties That Bind, images based on my own and family archive photography. And simultaneously working on a series of paintings for a two-person show to be titled O’Marra Squared with my daughter Emily who will begin studies at OCAD this coming fall.

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