Milé Murtanovski

Milé Murtanovski is the recent recipient of an Art in the County 2018 Jurors’ Choice Award for his work entitled Pearls of Wisdom. The piece commemorates Milé’s thirty years of painting- a pearl anniversary.

In 2010 Milé left Toronto, relocating to a 150-year old farmhouse in Prince Edward County, Ontario, where he opened Small Pond Arts with his wife and fellow artist, Krista Dalby. An artist residency and arts centre, Small Pond Arts also provided Milé with his own studio/gallery space, which is usually open to the public six months of the year.

Since moving to PEC, this new landscape and its people have greatly influenced his subject matter over the past four years: local farmers are featured in his Field to Canvas portrait series; there are the pastoral Barnscapes; and his 33 on 33 project which had him painting 33 scenes in 33 consecutive days en plein air from one end of PEC to the other along Highway 33, followed a few months later with County 101, a 101-hour ink painting marathon (no sleeping allowed) during which he painted 101 scenes of the people and places of Prince Edward County.

In 2014 Milé spent nine months working on To the Sound of Trumpets, a 100-painting project commemorating the start of World War I, and in 2017 collaborated with fellow PEC painter Celia Sage to create their experimental hybrid show on the theme of HOME.

He has shown his paintings in numerous solo and group exhibitions and his work is in public and private collections around the world, and you can see his most recent paintings and scale models on his blog.

Pearls of Wisdom, as well as a second mixed composition entitled Armistice Day Anniversary Cake, will be on display at Art in the County until July 8 at Studio Ex, The Armoury, Picton.