Why do you create?

Fausta Facciponte – Fausta is a visual artist and professor of photography in the Art and Art History Program at University of Toronto Mississauga and Sheridan College. She received her BA from the University of Toronto and her MFA from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Fausta has shown her work both nationally and internationally and has received grants from The Canada Council of the Arts and Ontario Arts Council and in 2018 Fausta was a finalist for the K.M. Hunter Award. In 2020, she received a grant from the Canada Arts Council to create a series of digital originals for online sharing in response to the pandemic. She is currently working on an upcoming exhibition at the Art Gallery of Burlington.

She has been acknowledged for her work by the Globe and Mail, Carousel Magazine, Now Magazine, Eyes In, Flavorwire Magazine, and Create Magazine. Her photographs are in the collections at McMaster Museum of Art, Peel Art Gallery Museum + Archives, Art Gallery of Mississauga and Shelter Hotel in LA, California. Her work is part of a project and publication with the John Hopkins University of Medicine (Baltimore), and MAPS – a project co-organized by the McMaster Museum and the School of Nursing that teaches medical students visual literacy. Her photography is represented by the Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto.

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Karim Machado-Aman – Karim Machado-Aman is a Mississauga Based Painter specializing in Figurative and Portrait paintings. He heavily features his friends and family in his work, showcasing a community that he has grown up into, and showing appreciation for people he doesn't see portrayed in the glorious sense that he wishes were the case. He guides the ideas of what he thinks his muses really are to him vs. how they portray themselves to the world outside of his bond with them. After Graduating from Sheridan College’s Visual and Creative Arts program, he enlisted himself heavily in growing his presence in the Ontario art world, and surrounding art world, by showcasing in galleries from Oakville, to Mississauga where he is based, to Toronto and the United Kingdom, having works in collections in the United Kingdom and Canada. He has won multiple awards, as well as being one of the creative residents in Visual Arts Mississauga’s 2020/21 Roster. He continues to strive for excellence in his works, pursuing his passion above all.

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Raheel Patel – Raheel Patel (He/Him) is a multidisciplinary artist/museum curator. Born and raised in India’s first-world heritage city Ahmedabad, he inherited the cultural values, and traditional art forms/techniques he applies to his contemporary art practice. After immigrating to Canada in 2014, he completed The Culture and Museum Management program, conducting his internship at the Peel Art Gallery Museum + Archives ( PAMA ) where he curated “The Art Of Kreeda”, an exhibition based on the board games of India. Through his “Holy Cow” studio practice, he conducts art educational workshops for schools, museums and art centres. He has served as a Public Art Advisory Committee Chair for the Art Gallery of Mississauga, and a Community Engagement Officer for the Mississauga Arts Council. In 2021 created/curated the “Lost Umbrellas” project for the Creative Hub Lost Museum. In 2021 he exhibited his work in the two-person Remorse exhibition at Toronto’s Global Art Foundation and was also a project-lead/curator for the AGM emerging queer LOVE  LAB residency the most recent project is queering the sky generously granted by the Canada Council.