And the small birds did sing

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Paul Petro Contemporary Art is pleased to present Carol Wainio And the small birds did sing, with paintings from 2015 to the present, and Natalie Wood The Line is Drawn - Dreams of Marronage, Refusal and Revolution, with deconstructed cardboard works from 2006 – 2012, two exhibitions of intersecting intent that echo through centuries of time while reflecting the current moment.

“We may still teach children about seasons, climate change or the fact that water flows downstream. We may still try to instil values like truth or humility against a noisy, dimming background of falsehood. Although not permitted to practice as artists at the time of these tales, older women and mothers were traditionally the oral spinners of what were then called ‘household tales’. Perhaps as an older female artist long interested in the relationships between histories big and small, I’m drawn to both the background and figures of fairy tale and the cautionary timbre of fable for hope, solace, and beauty in these small histories…to understand or wonder through an old craft like painting, to witness and work through slow material processes and perceptions about the past and the world we now find ourselves in.” -- Carol Wainio, January, 2025



CAROL WAINIO was born in Sarnia, Ontario in 1955. After studies at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and the University of Toronto, she earned an M.F.A. from Concordia University in 1985. She taught in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Ottawa from 1987 to 1989 and was an assistant professor in the Department of Visual Arts at Concordia from 1989 to 1998. Wainio lives and works in Montreal and Ottawa, where she is an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa. Carol Wainio is a recipient of the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts (2014).

Wainio's exhibition The Book, curated by Diana Nemiroff for Carleton University Art Gallery, included works from 2002 - 2010, and toured throughout Canada. A comprehensive hardcover catalogue is available. Wainio’s paintings were featured in the solo exhibition Old Masters, curated by Crystal Mowry for the Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery, March - April, 2013. Her work was exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts as part of the group exhibition Her Story Today, October 2015 - August 2016. In 2018 she was included in the inaugural group exhibition We'll All Become Stories at the new Ottawa Art Gallery. In 2019 she was named the Artist-In-Residence at the Diefenbunker, in Ottawa, which led to the exhibition Disasters for Little Children. Wainio's work was included in the group exhibition Painting Nature with a Mirror, at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, December 2019 – June 2020. Wainio’s paintings were the subject of the solo exhibition Réenchantement at 1700 La Poste in Montreal, November 2023 - January 2024, marking the 10th anniversary and closing exhibition at this Montreal institution. Wainio's paintings were featured in the exhibition Fables. Marc Chagall and Carol Wainio at the Musée d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, QC in summer 2025, before moving to the Musée des beaux-arts de Sherbrooke, QC, continuing to September 20, 2026.