YEREVAN/TORONTO — Artist David Arathoon was born in India and lives in Canada. He has achieved national success with numerous solo and group exhibitions in many private and public galleries. His paintings are in numerous corporate and private collections in Canada, the US, Australia, Hong Kong and other countries. Some of the numerous showings that have recently been mounted by Aratoon’s studio were titled: “Lilac Time;” “Autumn’s Gold;” “Where the Wild Roses Grow;” “Sonnet for Spring;” “Lilies of the Field;” “Gather Ye Rose Buds;” “Forever Autumn;” “Autumn’s Palanquin;” and “The Floating World.”
His paintings are included in many homes and public locations. Some corporate collections include: Vintage Inns, Queen’s Landing Hotel Niagara on the Lake, Toronto’s Market Gallery, Holiday Inn, Toronto, Movenpick Restaurants, Board of Trade, Humber College, Sunnybrook and Wellesley Hospitals, Canadian Tire Corporation, and Bell Canada. Arathoon is represented by several well known galleries, including: Whitten Gallery, King City, Gallerie Shayne, Montreal, The Russell Gallery, Peterborough, Harbour Gallery, Port Credit and McLaren-Barnes, Oakville, Odon Wagner Gallery, Toronto, Pegasus Gallery of Canadian Art, Salt Spring Island B.C.
David, nature and particularly, flowers, seem to be your biggest inspirations. No wonder, you come from India, a country, that has various flower fests and festivals.
I mainly paint what I see and know. I do not live near palm trees, so I do not paint them. I choose the colors as that suit my palette, often exaggerating them. I do not require making any painting like a photograph, because I have a camera to take pictures if I need that kind of realism. My figure paintings are actually illustrations, much like fairy tale picture books. Some have been as large as 5 feet tall by 7 feet. I paint them mostly by custom order.
Canada seems to be a rather monochromic country, yet you manage to keep the colorfulness of India.
Canada is very large and wide and has four distinct seasons. Each region has its own natural beauty and color schemes. The damp West Coast is very different from the colder East Coast. My favorite seasons to paint are spring and autumn. In the spring soft colors emerge in the leaves and grasses, and there are blossoms on the trees. In autumn, we get a vast range of colors in the changing leaves, combined with the evergreens, it is spectacular to see and paint.
