Sheri Gundry
Whitby, ON
Sheri Gundry, Artist, Professional Clown, and Executive Director and Lead Facilitator, Art With a Heart Inc. I am a commissioned working artist, a mentor, a teacher, a performance artist and the Executive Director of Art With A Heart, where I apply my talents and experience as a multi-disciplinary artist to help people in the Durham Region through Expressive Arts programs and therapy.
Art With A Heart Inc. runs programs that teach art techniques to a variety of people. Though many are from marginalized groups, some who are at risk, some due to poverty, some who have a learning disorder, some people who are living with illness and/or mental illness, and some seeking personal development. There have been participants have gone on to become emerging artists, or have sought further more formalized training in college and university programs. Almost all of them have experienced their own personal transformations through increased confidence and improved self-esteem.
My own creative work is expressed in a variety of media – pencil, pastel, marker, watercolour, acrylic, mixed media, water-soluble oils, face and body paint and her specialty, modern batik art. My art has been presented at Whitby’s Art by the Lake, the OAA Fall Art Festival, Whitby’s Station Gallery, The Mental Health Sciences’ The Conference Place, the McLean Centre in Ajax, and Brooklin’s Art in the Park among more than a dozen other notable locales. I also paint live as performance art and creative expression at events.
I am also Sunflower the Clown, entertaining and having fun with balloons and facepaint across Durham and GTA, and training up teams of new and budding clowns and artists to join my travelling troupe of entertainers!
I have received the 2007 Mayor’s Award for “The Pebble” at the 9th Annual PRAC Juried Art Show, won the July 2010 Top Ten People’s Choice Award for “On The Way Home at The Conference Place Gallery show Intersection, and have completed commissioned work for the Nelson Mandela Fund and for Durham Tourism, as well as for private individuals.