Shaun Downey - The Girl with the Spy Glasses - Oil painting Illustrator "Out of the Darkness Study " Oil painting on board - signed Board size: 12 x 12"- Frame size: 16 x 16" Artist Biography Shaun Downey (Born 1978) is active/lives in Ontario / Canada, Italy. He is known for Sensual female figure, genre and portrait painting, illustration, drawing. Born in 1978 Shaun Downey spent his childhood in Oshawa, Ontario and is a graduate of Sheridan College's illustration program. After high school, he enrolled in "Angel Studios," a classical drawing and painting school headed by painter Michael John Angel.A student of the great Italian painter Pietro Annigoni, Angel also headed a school in Florence, Italy. Shaun developed his sensibilities and tastes during this early pre-college training, and after graduation decided to pursue painting professionally.Shaun had his first show at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition in 2003, and he soon moved to Toronto's west end, showing at several group exhibitions around the city. In 2010, his painting Blue Coco was selected for exhibition in the BP Portrait Award, an annual show held every June at the National Portrait Gallery in London, England. Shaun's work was one of about 50 paintings selected from over two-thousand entries to this exhibition. He acknowledges, "It is a great honour to be a part of such an important exhibition, important both for myself and for the increased appreciation of figurative painting in general." Shaun resides in Toronto with his wife and fellow painter Kelly Grace.