Shayna Tate was born in Toronto and raised in Ottawa, Canada. She found joy in creating art as a child, and has continued to create art ever since. She studied at Canterbury Arts Highschool, Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) and the University of Ottawa. She also studied art on a kibbutz in Israel. She has worked on developing her art for the last ten years, mostly as a portrait artist. She also teaches art to young children at a Montessori School.
Shayna's art explores many styles, from a traditional realistic quality to more modern simplistic images. She has found joy in painting nature, from lily pads to Magnolia trees. Her latest goal has been to concentrate on incorporating light and emotion as her main themes in her work. She finds ways to express this idea using the female form and a dramatic light source. Shayna says; "My objective is to capture the emotional element in every painting. I concentrate on the individualistic beauty of the subject that I'm working on and how the colours and brushstroke contribute to the mood and feelings of the piece."
Shayna's artwork is influenced by the female role models in her life. Her parents divorced when she was three, and she and her sister were mostly raised by a strong, loving mother and grandmother. These female influences, her degree in Women=s Studies, as well as her own feelings and emotions appear in her art. On her father's side, there has been an influence of music, photography and palite knife painting by her grandfather.
As a young child, Shayna found herself to be an introverted girl who had difficulty expressing herself. Since then she has found her voice, and her art has always been a joyful way to express herself. Not only is art a tool of expression in her life, Shayna loves the calmness and joy that art provides in viewing her subjects in new ways, and as well, the simplistic joy of just mixing colours and pushing the paint around her canvass.
"There is a peaceful place that I'm in when I paint. It is one of the only times when I'm living completely in the moment. When the rush of our daily lives is on pause. This is what I appreciate about my job and I hope that my people viewing my art feel something similar."