Tanya Fenkell is a Canadian artist and writer compelled by our deep interconnectedness with nature to create her watercolour, textile, and sculptural pieces. The tranquility and hope Tanya finds in Canada’s landscape are accompanied by an awareness that our interrelationship with nature is a profound and fragile privilege.

Her most recent work has centred on dismantling her own landscapes and bringing textiles into her art practice. Deconstructing her landscapes was a precursor to the ‘Visible Mending/Reconciliation’ series, a disassembling and repair of landscape in search of a path to reconciliation. Engaging with natural found elements of the landscape, Tanya created her ‘constel/lichen’ series, combining stitched work with watercolour and birch bark. Then, looking more explicitly at humanity’s role in our environmental crisis, she began to incorporate rusted metal debris in her textile/fibre art.

Tanya’s creative development has included study, practice and teaching of various arts and fibre-related crafts, such as knitting, drawing, sewing, embroidery and bookbinding. Tanya’s love of all things literary manifests in her poetry, which has been published in a variety of journals and which she has collected in her chapbook, Torrent. Tanya holds a BA in English Literature from McGill University, an MA in English and an MIS from the University of Toronto. Tanya exhibits her art regularly in Ontario; it is held in private collections in Canada and the United States. She is happiest making things or being in the woods and spends as much time as she can on Baptiste Lake with her family.

Exhibitions

Lost & Found. Solo show. Art Gallery of Bancroft. July 2025.

Artist Project. May 8-11. 2025.

Fibrous. Gagne Contemporary. March 28 - May 4, 2025.

Landscapes. Aird Gallery. 2025.

Winter Parade. Gagne Contemporary. December - January 25.

Enmeshed. Solo show. Gagne Contemporary. September 20-29, 2024.

Landscapes. Gallery 1313. August 28- September 8, 2024.

Pairings. Melt Studio & Gallery. July, 2024.

Renewal. Melt Studio & Gallery. June, 2024.

Selections of work (ongoing). Muse Gallery & Cafe. 2022-2025.

Give a Little Bit. Melt Studio & Gallery. December, 2023.

Holiday Gift Guide. ARTWRK/. Nov-Dec, 2023.

Amend (with Marina Dempster). The Royal Annex. November, 2023.

Decay. Melt Studio & Gallery. October 27-November 26.

Reconciliation. Art Gallery of Bancroft. October 3-28, 2023.

Summer Lovin’. Northern Contemporary. August 3-15, 2023.

Summer Group Show. Blue Crow Gallery. 2023.

de/constructed land/scapes (solo show). ARTWRK/. June 2-9, 2023.

Renewal. Melt Studio & Gallery. May 12 - June 11, 2023.

Wild and Free. Headwaters Arts. Mar 22 - Apr 23, 2023.

Annual Juried Exhibition. Latcham Art Centre. Mar 13 - Apr 22, 2023.

A Sex Show. Gallery 1313. Feb 1-12, 2023.

Holiday Gift Guide. ARTWRK/. Nov 25 - Dec 31, 2022.

Landmark (solo show). ARTWRK/. November 4-11, 2022.

Carmichael Canadian Landscape Exhibition: Tradition Transformed. OMAH, Oct 2022 to January, 2023

Summer Group Show. Blue Crow Gallery. 2022

Emotional Landscapes (solo show). Art Gallery of Bancroft. May 2022.

Our World: the Wonder and the Worry. Leslie Grove Gallery. April 2022.

Hi Libido. Gallery 1313. February 2022.

Faded but Beautiful. Art of Emotions Gallery. October 2021.

Fresh (emerging artists show). ARTWRK/. August 2021.

Summer Group Show. Blue Crow Gallery. 2021.

Portraits of Resilience. AGO. 2021-Spring 2022.

Sovereign/ties. Lyceum Gallery. 2020.
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​Carmichael Canadian Landscape Exhibition: Tradition Transformed. Orillia Museum of Art & History, Oct 2020 to Jan 2021.

Where Do We Land? (group show), Leslie Grove Gallery, 2020.

Summer Group Show, Blue Crow Gallery, 2020.

The Watercolour Show (group show), Gerrard Art Space, 2020.

Hybrid (collaboration with Thorne Hayes), Juliana Social, 2019.

The Square Foot Show (group show), Gerrard Art Space, 2019.

Studio ThreeOneSix, 2019-2020.

Coffee & Clothing, June 2019.
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Central Connection (group show) May 2019.