"Flood" by Ric Santon

I had my sights set on art school from a very early age. I honed my craft by learning to draw Peanuts cartoons and painting along with Bob Ross on TV. It was enough to get me into the Ontario College of Art from which I graduated, and I have been working as an artist ever since.

With my wife and business partner, I opened Dianna Witte Gallery in Toronto, Canada, where I continue to show my work and curate exhibitions on a regular basis.

As a painter I believe the idea is paramount. I approach each body of work with a curious mind, and I am constantly experimenting with different materials and techniques to fulfill the concept. Time and memory always play a key role. My paintings work best when they appear as dreamlike images in which fiction and reality meet, well-known tropes merge, meanings shift, past and present fuse. To me, a painting is near done when its origins start to come into question and it begins to feel like something I've discovered rather than something I just made.