Sandra Iafrate has lived and trained in Australia, USA and Canada. She was born in the Niagara Peninsula, Canada. Sandra studied journalism and writing at City University London, England, and Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and over the past more than 2 decades, she has diverted her creative work to include visual arts. The artist currently divides her time between living in Canada and the US. Her published and original works are exhibited and sold internationally. She has spent many years learning oil painting and classical drawing with renowned artists the late Kevin Taylor and Juan Martinez at Brighton Arts Society in Melbourne, and the Academy of Realist Art in Toronto respectively. She says that her favorite part of being an artist is volunteering in the arts; as a co-founder of North Toronto Group of Artists, a docent for the Art Gallery of Ontario, and by launching many school-based and community arts projects.
Sandra offers an annual workshop in Europe for one week each summer and occasionally teaches painting workshops. Her work includes floral series as well as American and European landscapes, which exude serenity, depth and movement. The painterly mix of impressionism and realism is enhanced by a euphoric atmosphere, which lends to the frame of mind of the composition. Sandra paints because she believes it is most rewarding to recreate from reality or to create from the mind, with a twist, bringing her own version, while playing with the composition and contrast in order to achieve what is the ultimate goal for her and for many artists. It is important for her to shift mediums and sometimes combine them so as to keep the process interesting and fresh.
