Artist Statement:

Bortolo Marola was born in Marola di Chiuppano, in northern Italy, just a few short miles from the Palladian centers of Vicenza, Verona, Venice, and Padua, where art is embraced and regarded as an integral part of everyday life.

Art for him has been a life-long journey of exploration, which began when he won all top prizes in a national art competition while still in grade school.

After immigrating to Canada Bortolo went on to study at the Kootenay School of Art and with the American School of Art, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as well as at Douglas College and Kwantlen University College where he received a Fine Arts Diploma. Ultimately, he and his wife Judy settled in White Rock on the Semiahmoo Peninsula to raise their family.

As a multi-media artist, Bortolo's work is all about emotion, colour, and distilling the fleeting moment of inspiration: that evanescent spark which stimulates his imagination and compels him to cry out with joy at the sight of a sunbeam filtering through the silence of a mist-shrouded shore. He seeks always to capture that instant and the beauty around him, and to share his vision with the world.

Bortolo is a member of the Federation of Canadian Artists, and Landscape Artists International. He has had numerous successful exhibitions both in Canada and in his native Italy where he has developed a large following and has received much critical acclaim. His work has been selected for calendar and magazine covers and his paintings are held in both corporate and private collections across Canada, the U.S., Japan, Britain and Italy.