Born in Montreal, Sandra Duba-Shubs earned degrees in literature, history, and education at Concordia University and McGill University, and a graduate degree at California State College at Bakersfield.
Her art education began in 1986 in Toronto, starting with studies in ceramics at the Koffler Centre. From 1987 to 1991, Sandra studied sculpture and painting in an intensive part-time program at the Art Centre of Central Technical School, followed by ongoing studies at the Haliburton School of The Arts at Fleming College, the Koffler Centre, and private workshops. She is a founding member of Stoneworks & Company and Diverse Palette, and has been exhibiting since 1990.
Drawn by the texture and the sheer physicality of stone, Sandra worked with this medium to create a gesture, a movement arrested at a moment in time. She also revels in two-dimensional media, particularly printmaking and multimedia painting.
Sandra’s imagery is inspired by her social conscience and activism and a gift for storytelling. Her work gives physical form to the strength of people and their struggles as she explores primal themes of birth, growth, giving, and awareness.
She has experimented with writing as a graphical device, using words to “tell” a story figuratively through mass, density, and line rather than conceptually through type.
Her more recent series — Back Alley Abstracts, and Prisms — integrate people with architectural motifs of the city.