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| Steve Walker |
Born in Ottawa, Walker was 19 when he moved to Toronto to study theatre at university. Deeply affected by the impact HIV/AIDS had on the gay community, he gave up his goal of being an actor and started to paint.
"Maybe, just maybe, I could help find a cure for the hatred, fear, and ignorance that surrounded so many young men around the world as they lay in hospital beds and drew the last breaths of unfinished lives," he wrote.
Walker said his paintings portrayed themes of love, attraction, hope, despair, loneliness and "the power of a person touching another."
His works, on display at bars and restaurants in Toronto's gay neighborhood, captivated the public and he was soon exhibiting and selling his paintings at galleries all over the U.S. and Canada. Walker's paintings were also widely published in magazines and calendars.
Walker lived for years in a modest apartment at Wellesley and Jarvis St.
"I see my work as a documentation, an interpretation, a crystallization of singular moments rendered in line, color, light, shadow, using a hundred brushes, a thousand colors, and a million brushstrokes," he wrote. "I strive to make people stop, if only a moment, think and actually feel something. My paintings contain as many questions as answers."
A funeral service will be held at Our Lady of the Visitation Church on Bank St. in Ottawa on Feb. 25 at 11:00 am. A memorial to celebrate Walker's life will also likely be held in Toronto at a later date.
A funeral service will be held at Our Lady of the Visitation Church on Bank St. in Ottawa on Feb. 25 at 11:00 am. A memorial to celebrate Walker's life will also likely be held in Toronto at a later date.
Walker once wrote: "I hope that in its silence, the body of my work has given a voice to my life, the lives of others, and in doing so, the dignity of all people."
