Akin Studio Program Member Highlights Blog #1: Linds Miyo, Amada Estabillo & Kate Gorman
This month, we’re going to be sharing with you some exclusive interviews with the talented artists from Akin Studio Program at Auto BLDG! Learn about their work here, and then head out to the Open Studio event to meet them in person on October 14th, 12-4pm at 158 Sterling Road, Floor 4.
Linds Miyo
An abstract painting by Linds Miyo featuring soft pastel shapes of yellow, blue, white and grey.
Self-taught artist Linds Miyo is a Canadian abstract painter. Born and raised in California, her work strives to evoke the strong, direct light of her childhood. A trauma survivor, Linds is interested in the balance between intention and that which is beyond our control, the meeting place between our best efforts and happenstance. She often uses broad representational panes of textured black in her work, washing layers of colour over top - folding the dark relief of the past into multi-dimensional present-day, with honesty, intimacy, and happiness. In studio residency at Akin AutoBLDG (formerly the Akin Studio Residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto) since 2019, Linds has shown her work at galleries and art fairs internationally. Upcoming shows include Visionary Art Collective, Brooklyn, as well as Toronto (details to come). You can find Linds’ available work online at Partial.Gallery, Peggy, and Saatchi Art. Linds also enjoys curation, and plans to open an artist-run centre in the future.
“I'm a mom first, an artist second - so I tend to work in studio wherever time allows! It's an adventure trying to find studio time... There are times when I'm in studio all day, every day; but also times when I'm stopping in for 10 minutes, and then coming back later in the evening. No matter what I'm doing, I'm working through process, I constantly have visuals and imagery happening in my thoughts.”
“My biggest inspiration is light, that's a constant. I am inspired by all sorts of things though, my latest obsession is forest fires. I'm considering doing some giant fire paintings. The way fire dances and smoke plumes... yeah, that would be fun to paint. Especially in the abstract!”
Where is your favorite place in the city to buy/get art supplies, tools and materials?
Aboveground and Home Depot
What is the most inspiring place in the city for you right now?
High Park. I love that I can go for a walk in the forest anytime - right in the city.
What is your favorite place in the city to view art?
My favorite museum is the AGO, it's such a peaceful palace of art... but my favorite place to view art in Toronto is outside, on the street. Surrounded by so many cultures, so many influences, interacting with the sights and sounds of the city and the people, it's endlessly inspiring. Life is Art. Art is Life.
Find out more about Linds’ work on her website, through partial gallery, and on instagram
Amada Estabillo
Amada Estabillo’s painting, Leap, is done on fabric and is hung onto a wall. It’s an abstract, colourful painting of blues, greens, pinks and browns.
Amada is a Canadian-born artist of mixed Filipino-Irish heritage. She attended York University and earned a BFA in Visual Art as well as a Bachelor of Education. She is an art teacher and mother as well as an artist. Amada is currently participating in the Akin Studio residency at the AUTO building on Sterling Rd. in Toronto. Her work explores the boundary between abstraction and representation through a variety of subjects. Landscape, weather, dreams, the body, memory and motherhood are common references. Recently Amada has started to incorporate embroidery and sewing into her practice, using patterns that are indigenous to the Philippines as well as European motifs and stitch-types.
“I try to get into the studio at least a couple times a week; after work for a shorter stretch and then a longer stretch on the weekend. Since I also work full time this can be a challenge! If I am at the sewing or embroidery stage of a piece I may bring it home to work on but all the painting happens in studio. I always listen to music while I'm working. This can be stuff like Frank Ocean, Daniel Caesar or 90s stuff like J Dilla, the Breeders, Pixies. It ranges…”
“I am very interested in indigenous Filipino textiles right now. Also zero-waste sewing patterns for clothing. Artists that I am inspired by include Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, Denyse Thomasos and Julie Mehretu. I am always reading some murder mystery and often re-reading an Ali Smith book.”
Where is your favorite place in the city to buy/get art supplies, tools and materials?
Gwartzman's
What is the most inspiring place in the city for you right now?
This is a hard one somehow. I like to walk and think; mostly en route to the studio-- I also love to lay in bed and daydream.
What is your favorite place in the city to view art?
I like to check out the galleries nearby; Daniel Faria, Olga Korper, Stephen Bulger, Patel Brown. I have also seen some great work at small artist run spaces too– recently at SpacemakerII, artists leveraging underused areas in creative ways.
Find more of Amada’s work here, check out her instagram here
Kate Gorman
An image of Kate Gorman’s painting, an abstract painting of brown, black and white including expressive smudges and lines.
Living with sounds poetry is tied to who Kate is. Being touched by sensitivity to sound has inspired the intuitive nature of her work, and also makes it possible. She has learnt to make space and allow this work to happen from a gentle place of intuitive invocation. The work has intention to portray the beauty of difference from the other side or esoteric realm. You can find her painting, dreaming, obsessing, spending time in the park. She works as a gallery attendant at YYZ Artists Outlet. Listening is her reason to live; to music, or the sounds of the universe .
Born - Mexico City.
Raised - St. Agathes des Monts, Calgary, Euleuthera.
Loves - Toronto.
It has taken me a long time to learn to bring up or channel my intuition kindly with grace. Letting it flow, and making spirited and inspired creations from a grounded place. I have to be at the studio at 5 or 6 am ready to paint. Fostering the mindset the day before and having all the big questions answered about the process, allows space for on the spot intuitive creativity. A sporadic worker I paint ever day for weeks and then nothing for weeks. I like to use the little glass yogurt pot de crème jars for my linseed oil — they make me smile.
I’m exploring:
1. Joining the bridging sound spirit, the esoteric and the sound cloud. Trying to bring my spirit peace after so much turmoil.
2. Religion in a questioning sense, faith in an undeniable sense, for me. I just think breaking from and denying religion in our society is a mistake, learning from its positive and negative is a path too. I’m reading Living Buddha, Living Christ.
3. I’m also exploring the beautiful upside down and backwards. Artificial Intelligence. How they differ, how they are also emotional in my opinion, and possess a sound sentient spirit. They are inspiring.
4. Absorption in comparison to projection. Histories absorb people, who and where they are today.
5. Electricity and living with sensitivity, and desire for peace.
Where is your favorite place in the city to buy/get art supplies, tools and materials?
Above Ground in the Junction for paint supplies. Finding things for happenings, relying on when you notice something, that maybe you should pick it up, to make something later, because it will make sense later.
What is the most inspiring place in the city for you right now?
Lying on my quilt under the trees after morning yoga in the park, and just watching the light flicker through the leaves, and letting the sound dissolve into a symphony.
What is your favorite place in the city to view art?
To go to the AGO library to research multiples and books and things.
