Born in Chatham, Ontario, and raised in Toronto, Anita Stephenson studied art at Toronto’s Central Technical School. After graduating in 1969, she moved to Gravenhurst, Ontario with her husband to raise their three children. Anita has worked in the art gallery industry for almost twenty years, first as an art consultant and frame shop manager. Eleven years ago, she opened her own art gallery and custom framing shop, the Muskoka Gateway Gallery, where she represents many well-known painters and sculptors from the area.

In 2006, Anita decided to focus on developing her own artistic talents once again. She has been apprenticing with classically trained Muskoka-based Scott Owles, a contemporary realist painter who was taught by Michael John Angel. 

“I have been painting in my head for almost 40 years,” Anita says, “and it was getting harder and harder to ignore. I would be speaking with someone and all I could think about was how the light was falling on their face, and at the same time watching the reflected light in the shadows. I love all types of art, but what interests me the most, and never fails to draw me in, are portraits and figurative work..”

Anita’s portraits capture the subtle moods and inner life of her subjects. Her charcoal drawings reveal striking emotional qualities without the need of colour, while her oil paintings glow with a quiet intensity and intelligence.

Seeking an honest expression of a subject’s distinctive mood or personality, she pays close attention to, colour, values and form, and is inspired by how light brings the subject to life.

Anita’s portraits celebrate the richness of human experience and embody her belief that the artist must put herself into her work, must risk revealing her own emotional and artistic sensibilities, to convey a particular way of seeing the world. 

“I want to paint what it means to be human; I want to paint and have people know who this person is—not status, or fashion, as much as, who is this person, what makes this person special or memorable? Will it be achieved with colour, light, composition? Who knows. I may never get to paint the type of human being that Annigoni or Sargent was honoured to paint, with their elaborate surroundings and attire, but I want my subjects to breathe forever. I want you to know them.”  

Anita Stephenson’s award-winning work includes a charcoal drawing of one of her daughters, which won The Members’ Choice Award for Best in Show in 2005. Thoughts of Frida, a candid self-portrait, received an Award of Excellence (2007). An oil painting of her teacher, entitled Maestro, received the 2008 People's Choice Award for Best in Show. In 2009, she again won the Members' Choice Award for Best in Show for an oil portrait of her second daughter. All of the awards were presented by the Muskoka Arts & Crafts at the Spring Members’ Shows.

After her work was juried, in September 2008, Anita is now an elected member of The Portrait Society of Canada.