Claire Cepukas
Nepean, Ontario
Booth 840
Main
Claire Cepukas is an Ottawa-based artist whose work explores the interplay between the organic and the artificial. After earning a Fine Arts degree from the University of Ottawa, she spent over a decade working in forestry across Canada, an experience that fostered a deep appreciation for the flora and fauna that shape natural landscapes. This connection remains central to her artistic practice, which merges photography, digital manipulation, and painting to construct surreal environments inspired by both real and imagined spaces. Her recent work focuses on dioramas—miniature, hand-assembled scenes created using foraged natural materials, plastic plants, and recycled objects. These small-scale landscapes serve as a foundation for her oil paintings that employ unconventional colour palettes, further pushing the boundaries of traditional nature representation. By juxtaposing natural and synthetic elements, her work challenges viewers to reconsider their perceptions of what is nature.
