Mina Vancardo – Artist, Educator & Creator
Mina Vancardo is a Toronto-based artist and educator whose career has been dedicated to inspiring creativity in others. She holds a BA in Art and Art History from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Education, and has been teaching Visual Arts to teens since 2001.
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Her teaching philosophy blends classical art techniques with experimental, intuitive exploration. Mina encourages her students to study the masters while also experimenting, playing, and finding their own artistic voice. This balance of technical skill and creative freedom is at the heart of her work both in the classroom and in her studio.
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In her own art practice, Mina creates mixed media collage artwork that combines found materials, layered textures, and instinctive painting. Storytelling and curiosity are central to her process, resulting in one-of-a-kind pieces that invite viewers to pause, reflect, and discover hidden connections. She also shares her passion through art workshops in acrylic painting, linocut printmaking, mixed media, and collage—helping participants of all levels experience the joy of making art.
Telling Stories Through Intuitive Mixed Media Collage Art
Mina is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice is rooted in storytelling through mixed media collage. Her work merges the hands-on tradition of cutting and pasting with an automatic, intuitive approach to painting. Each piece is a visual journey—an exploration of memory, texture, and emotion—constructed through a process that is as layered and unpredictable as the final artwork itself.
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The creative process begins with collecting, a constant and almost compulsive part of Mina’s everyday life. Whether it’s a torn magazine page, a handwritten note, a piece of fabric, or a forgotten scrap of paper, these found materials carry a history that becomes the seed of her collage work. Each fragment is chosen not just for its aesthetic value, but for the story it can help tell.
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From there, cutting and arranging becomes an act of focused experimentation. Without a preconceived vision, Mina lets intuition guide her, feeling the tension and balance between pieces, allowing emotion and impulse to shape the narrative. This stage is like assembling a puzzle without the box—both challenging and deeply meditative.
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Finally, painting brings cohesion and rhythm. Through slow, deliberate brushwork, Mina adds texture and depth, allowing new meanings and unexpected surprises to surface. It’s a form of automatic painting that weaves together disparate elements into a unified story.
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The result is an imaginative body of work that invites viewers to pause, reflect, and discover hidden connections. Mina’s mixed media collages are not just visual compositions—they are emotional landscapes, intuitive stories told through layers of paper, paint, and found objects.
