Rebecca Fortin is a Canadian-born visual artist residing in rural Whitby, Ontario. Influenced by her childhood growing up on a farm in southwestern Ontario — she seeks to foster a deep connection between people, plants and nature through creative processes. A current focus is creating botanical castings: positive-relief wall frescos using botanicals pressed in wet clay and set with plaster.
After a 20-year career in public health, Fortin is enjoying a second career working full-time as a professional artist. In 2022, she graduated from the Drawing & Painting program at the Haliburton School of Art + Design. Over the last two years, Fortin’s work has been shown in a variety of locations across Ontario and are held in private collections. Fortin’s botanical cast artwork, entitled Ghost Botanicals, was juried into the Latcham Art Centre’s 2023 Annual Juried Exhibition (Stouffville, Ontario). In 2024, her work, entitled Wildflowers on Blue, won honourable mention at Ontario Tech University’s The Art of Sustainability Juried Exhibition and was curated into the Pelham Art Festival’s online gallery for Mixed Media. Subsequently, the artwork was purchased by a private collector. A collection of her botanical casts were also exhibited at the Colborne Street Gallery (Fenelon Falls, Ontario) in a 2024 solo show entitled: Soft and Wild. She is also a 2023 recipient of an Ontario Arts Council Exhibition Assistance grant.
As a woman who is childless by chance and by choice, my art enables me to explore nurturing aspects of myself that otherwise may be unattainable. It delves into discovering strength as a woman within the natural world — granting myself the freedom to slow down and resist society’s rapid and demanding pace. I turn to art and nature as a means of recovering from clinical burnout and managing chronic pain.
My artwork challenges personal and societal expectations regarding production versus domesticity; industry versus rest. I draw inspiration from nature — observing her ebbs and flows in the ever-changing seasonal rhythms. My process is unhurried and deliberate, allowing me to go at my own pace. I begin in nature, tending to my gardens or hiking in the nearby woods with my partner and dogs. I pay deep attention to the natural world with curiosity, absorbing the support offered. Bringing lessons from nature into my studio, I often incorporate harvested plants and wildflowers, opting for natural and eco-friendly materials wherever feasible. My choice of soft yet vibrant colour palettes, intricate techniques, and use of plant material directly in my work leads to visually appealing artwork that evokes feelings of comfort. In contemporary art, beauty at times can be dismissed as ‘too beautiful’.
I aim to create works that evoke a sense of calm for people and gently encourage a reconsideration of our connection with ourselves, each other and the natural world. Now more than ever, I believe we need art that inspires a sense of wonder and tranquility — urging viewers to live harmoniously with nature while embracing life to the fullest.
See more of Rebecca’s work:
