About Silvia Pecota
Toronto-born, Silvia Pecota, is an award-winning artist and photographer whose work covers the four corners of the world. She has exhibited in Canada, the United States, Germany, Italy, the former Soviet Union, and Afghanistan. Since 1985, her photographs have appeared internationally in several top publications.
From her travels to the Canada’s northern territories, Silvia saw the needs of remote hamlets and, as a result, organized numerous hockey drives for Nunavut children. This experience inspired her to illustrate her first children’s book,“Hockey Across Canada”,which became so popular with elementary schools that, in 2005, it was translated into Inuktitut “Haakiktun Akianganun Kanatami”.Furthermore, her photographs of the Inuit produced a body of photographic work that resulted in several international exhibitions. For the 2007 Canada Winter Games in the Yukon, Silvia created an artwork series illustrating traditional Inuit and Dene games entitled, “Northern Spirit Through Northern Sport / Le Sport du Nord dans l’Esprit du Nord”.
Silvia Pecota was selected by the Canadian Army in 2003 to participate in the Canadian Forces Artist Program and since then has had the opportunity to take photographs on various bases across Canada as well as to travel to Haiti and five times to Afghanistan.
Since 2001, she has focused her work on the “Canadian Soldier”. Being embedded with the troops, she was able to document their efforts, appreciate their dedicated service and witness the sacrifices soldiers endure when putting themselves in harm’s way. Her experiences from the Afghan Mission and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), have inspired over 50 compositions, six large format art calendars (from 2009-2013 and in 2018), as well as producing various end-of-tour gifts and medallions for the soldiers finishing their overseas deployments.
In 2008, she sculpted a relief, dedicated to the Fallen, of which there are two bronze copies. One is displayed at the Royal Canadian Air Force Museum in Trenton, Ontario while the other had been on display at the Canadian Cenotaph in Kandahar, Afghanistan. In 2014 she also designed a monument for the city of Windsor, Ontario (located at Reaume Park) honouring more than 250 fallen Canadian soldiers and peacekeepers from the Afghan and UN Missions.
In 2012, Silvia was commissioned by the Class of the United States Army War College to create artwork representing “Fallen Comrades”. She was the first female and non-American artist to have been selected in its 110 year history.
Since 2013, she has been commissioned by the Royal Canadian Mint to design several commemorative coins of which two coins were nominated for the International “COTY”(Coin of the Year) by Krause Publications in the “Inspirational Category”for 2016. As well, Alberta Motor Vehicles selected Silvia’s artwork, “Fallen Comrades: PPCLI”, for a license plate that won best License Plate in North America for 2014 (ALPCA) .
Her artwork is also frequently used for book and magazine covers including the Canadian Military Journal. She designed and illustrated the “Book of Remembrance” for Norfolk County the commemorates the soldiers who died since WWI to the Afghan War.
