Pan Am portraits
Burlington artist honours athletes with Pan Am display
Deborah Pearce has painted people from all over the world — from the West Indies to East Africa.
But now, the Burlington artist has moved her focus closer to home, painting elite Canadian athletes.
Her work is displayed in “Canadian Athletes: A Flame within History,” a Portrait Society of Canada show created in honour of the Pan Am and Parapan Am Games.
After training under Robert Bateman at Burlington’s Nelson High School, Pearce went to Mount Allison University in Sackville New Brunswick where she studied fine arts.
Pearce says she’s always been interested in portraits. She’s painted them on commission for her entire career.
“It’s a challenge to capture a likeness,” she says. She says there’s incredible precision required in portraiture.
“You have to be prepared to move the left eye over an eighth of an inch. You’ll have to rebuild the whole thing.
“Or you might have to move the nostrils up an eighth of an inch,” Pearce says. “And that’s how you fine-tune the likeness.”
In 2010, the Portrait Society of Canada asked its members to find an Olympian in their community for a show they were working on.
When Pearce asked Burlington’s city hall for a name, they gave her 22.
She says she started with Helen Nickel, who was in the Athens Olympics for badminton.
But she then realized there were more Burlington-area athletes, and she “just had to” paint them as well.
“I was so impressed with how hard-working and modest these athletes are,” she says. “We just don’t wave their flag enough. That’s how I feel: somebody needs to wave their flag.”
Pearce’s portraits will be on display at the Toronto Centre for the Arts until July 28.