About Ilene Sova
Ilene Sova is an Artist Educator who identifies as Mixed Race, with a white settler, Afro-Caribbean, ancestry. She also is an artist who lives with a disability. As such, she passionately identifies with the tenets of intersectional feminism and has dedicated her career to art and activism. Ilene Sova is the founder of the Feminist Art Conference and Blank Canvases, an in-school creative arts programme for elementary school students. Sova is an Associate Professior in Contemporary Drawing and Painting in the Faculty of Art at OCADU University.
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Ilene Sova – Artist, Educator, and Feminist Arts Advocate
Ilene Sova is a Toronto-based artist, educator, and curator whose practice bridges art and social justice. Identifying as a mixed-race person with white settler and Afro-Caribbean ancestry, and as an artist living with a disability, Sova grounds her work in intersectional feminism and decolonial thought. Her painting practice focuses on portraiture as a tool for social change, exploring narratives of equity, identity, and resilience.
Sova is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Art at OCAD University, where she previously served as the Ada Slaight Chair of Contemporary Painting and Drawing (2018–2023). In this role, she directed a program of over 600 students and 50 faculty, led curriculum renewal, and established the university’s Decolonizing Studio Art Education Committee with her colleague Nadia McLaren. Through this work, she chaired the transformation of 42 courses. Her research, recognized by SSHRC Tri-Council funding, focuses on Decolonizing Studio Art from Turtle Island to the Islands of the Bahamas, in collaboration with the University of the Bahamas and ICE.
An acclaimed exhibiting artist, Sova has presented her work across Canada and internationally, including at the Museum of Canadian Contemporary Art, Department of Canadian Heritage, and Mutuo Centro de Arte in Barcelona. Her celebrated portrait series, The Missing Women Project, brought national attention to violence against women and was featured by CBC, CTV, and The Toronto Star. The series also informed provincial policy consultations on women’s rights and has been discussed in feminist and art discourse, including The Journal of Psychology and Counselling and Woman’O’Clock (Italy).
Sova is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Feminist Art Collective (FAC), a transnational platform for feminist dialogue through conferences, residencies, and exhibitions. Since 2012, FAC has partnered with institutions such as OCAD University, Ryerson University, and Canadian Stage, convening over 500 participants per year and hosting a renowned international residency at Artscape Gibraltar Point. She also founded Blank Canvases, an education program in partnership with the Toronto District School Board, which connects elementary students with contemporary Toronto artists and reaches over 5,000 youth annually.
As a curator, Sova has led numerous exhibitions advancing equity and social engagement, including Urban Futurities (Propeller Gallery), Family Matters (Ontario Court of Justice), Barbara Moore: Life, Lessons and Legacy (Caliban Arts Theatre), and Beyond Smiles, a collaboration with the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Dentistry. Her 2025 curatorial project, Too Much Fashion at United Contemporary, which celebrates Black creativity and style, was recently featured in The Toronto Star, CBC Arts, and The Globe and Mail.
A frequent keynote speaker, Sova has presented at TEDxWomen Toronto, the American Society for Aesthetics, SUNY Geneseo, the Pratt Institute, and the Art Gallery of Ontario, among other notable venues. She has received numerous awards for teaching and leadership, including OCAD University’s Excellence in Early-Stage Research Award (2021) and the Lord Cultural Resources Women’s History Month Award for Community Contribution (2023).
Through her combined roles as artist, educator, and advocate, Ilene Sova continues to champion equity, decolonization, and community transformation—using art as a catalyst for dialogue, empathy, and systemic change.