Corina (Nina) Menz

I grew up in Germany and left in 1996 to come to Canada and settled in North Vancouver. In 2016 my husband and I moved to the beautiful Comox Valley on Vancouver Island. Besides my career in IT, I’ve been involved in the arts throughout my entire adult life, having explored different media in the performing and visual arts, and for the last 15 years have focused on painting. 

I have spent time exploring landscapes and still life, and lately I have been attracted to painting figures and portraits. I start a painting with some sketches to work out a composition that I feel supports my idea, and then build layers of acrylic paint colours chosen intuitively, sometimes incorporating oil pastels, ink or gouache. 

The figures in my paintings are on a journey. I am imagining where each of them might be going to or coming from. They draw me in to follow a trail to their mystery and to find a better understanding on a deeper level. It fuels my curiosity and the desire to carry on with exploring further possibilities to express what I feel and see. 

I wish to leave the interpretation of my work up to the viewer, perhaps adding their own imagination to the story of my paintings, or weaving in parts of themselves as I have done. 

The process of creating work is accompanied by continuing to take a variety of art classes with artist educators in the Lower Mainland and Germany, whom I am grateful to as they all have taken part in my growth as an artist and as a human being. 

My work is in private collections in BC and Germany. I am a member of the Pearl Ellis Gallery and I enjoy volunteering some of my time to support our local art community.