Bio
Stefan Horik was born in 1965 in the province of Quebec, Canada, from a father of Ukrainian origin and a French Canadian mother. During the first seven years of his life, he followed his parents in their travels until the whole family settled down on an old farm in the Charlevoix County some 70 miles east of Quebec City.
His place of residence and his family environment have no doubt influenced what he is currently doing. Since childhood, he has been living in the magnificent county of Charlevoix, which is an almost unlimited source of inspiration for him as well as for a great number of artists.
The success of his first exhibition held in 1996 encouraged him to go on and his passion for painting only became greater. Stefan loves nature and adventure. He travels all over North America and, drawing his inspiration from his travels, he then paints works marked by emotion. Stefan likes well-defined contrasts and significant variations in colour value. He paints very vibrant pictures with a pallet knife and great spontaneity.
Stefan Horik currently exhibits his work in galleries across Canada and is represented in the United States. In short, the paintings of his artistic career are inspired by travel and time.
Evolution
Stefan has been interested in art since his early years. His father, himself a painter, often took the whole family with him on his painting excursions. When he was 10 years old, he asked his father to join his student classes. His living environment was very stimulating for a young boy: it was the country with its rigours and its blessings.
Stefan’s childhood was the foundation of his future. Right after obtaining a bachelor’s degree at Université de Sherbrooke, he came back to live in Charlevoix and really got down to painting. Every Friday afternoon after work, he would hop in his car and, come rain or shine, he would go to Quebec City to take drawing or painting lessons. The first group exhibition he took part in, held in 1996, marked the start of his professional career. His first solo exhibition took place in Montreal in 1999. A few years later, he was a full-time painter and he polished his technique.
The progress of his career was dazzling. From exhibition to exhibition, his gallery network got increasingly larger, with Vancouver as the last Canadian frontier. Since he travels a lot in the United States, he is considering exhibiting there in the near future.
Now he currently divides his time between travels during which he stocks up on images, and work in his studio where he paints memory-filled pictures to express an emotion.
