Explore The Expressive Voice Of Colour With Szonja’s Studio

Szonja Vucsetics is a Hungarian-Canadian artist and art educator based in Toronto, Ontario and owner of Szonja’s Studio. Szonja’s Studio, launched with the help of the ShopHERE powered by Google program, compiles and showcases Szonja’s paintings and works on paper. Her online store allows her to share her latest pieces created in her studio on a more regular basis and with a wider audience. Szonja has been creating work in her studio and teaching art classes to children in various local community venues for the past 20 years.

In early childhood, Szonja was fascinated by the “expressive voice of colour” she found in nature and other visual imagery. She speaks the visual language of stories and dreams through her paintings and mixed media pieces, and playfully blurs the lines between reality and imagination; impression and expression; and representation and abstraction. Working primarily in oil paint on canvas and mixed media on paper, she endeavors through material explorations with brushwork and colour. 

With no prior experience building and marketing an online store, the ShopHERE powered by Google program allowed Szonja to create an online storefront to showcase her work to a much wider audience than she had been able to reach before. She views her new online presence as an important step to bring in opportunities that she may have otherwise missed.

Szonja found her eCommerce Coordinator very helpful and patient when explaining how to set up and run her business through Shopify, as well as how to market to gain exposure through other channels, such as social media.

“The store was put together carefully and with great attention to detail by my coordinator from the raw material I provided.”

Szonja has gained great feedback about the aesthetics of the store, and she feels confident making additions and changes as needed because of the training she received. Being an artist is an almost completely hands-on business, and Szonja found the ShopHERE Program incredibly helpful in giving her the skills she needed to make her business function online.

“It was like learning a new language or skillset, and I look forward to using the platform as a way to engage viewers with my artwork, studio practice, and hands on creative process.” 

Setting up an online store has allowed Szonja to look at her past work objectively, and curate her art for a wider audience. She enjoyed the step-by-step process of fine tuning details, editing visuals, and making her work easily available for purchase. She now has the confidence to show off her work, engage with a larger audience, and communicate her studio practice not only through her website, but also through other online channels like Instagram.

Szonja feels as an artist, it’s more important now than ever to share our work, support each other, reach out, engage, and include our communities in what we do. She encourages other artists and business owners to give, offer, and stay connected in new and innovative ways. 

“Maintaining a link with community through the arts and engaging through cultural expression has been proven through the times to help individuals and communities survive and get through hardships, trying times, and isolated circumstances.”

Art has been Szonja’s therapy to work through life experience, trauma, and other journeys. She views her work as a visual journal, telling the stories of lived and subconscious experience. Her work often focuses on our relationship to the land as the place that holds our stories. Her latest work has been focused on ancestry, trauma, and human relationships with land. You can find her work at www.szonjasstudio.ca 

If you want to set up your own art gallery or other business online, you can sign up for the ShopHERE Powered by Google program here.