About

Erica Gajewski (born in Oshawa, Ontario) is a Canadian artist. An athlete from a young age, she achieved success in soccer and running at the provincial and national level, which provided a gateway to education. She earned a full scholarship to the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Savannah, Georgia, where she played collegiate soccer while completing a B.F.A., and later ran cross-country and coached while earning an M.F.A.

Gajewski’s artistic practice is grounded in a sustained engagement with other animals and a desire to understand who they are as sentient beings—how they perceive, experience, and move through the world, and how human and more-than-human lives are bound and entangled. To deepen her understanding of human–animal relationships, she pursued a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto. Her transdisciplinary, research-based practice integrates environmental studies, animal studies, and visual art to examine human responsibility within multispecies worlds, with particular attention to how human actions impact biodiversity in the context of the climate crisis.

Her recent land-based visual works focus on historical and contemporary human–animal relations in rural agricultural spaces in Southern Ontario, as witnessed through the material bodies of animals who depend on these environments. The work reveals the cumulative effects of slow violence on land, which ripple through the lives of other animals, and how small-scale farms can function as refugia for biodiversity. Through close observation and situated practice, Gajewski explores the role of localized, embodied care in supporting species resilience and multispecies flourishing amid accelerating ecological changes.

For decades, Gajewski has sought to visually articulate her encounters with other animals, drawing together scientific, theoretical, historical, and embodied knowledge into forms that honour their sentient, intelligent, and deep emotional lives. Her work takes shape through drawing, painting, soft sculpture, and land-based practices—each functioning as a mode of research and a gesture of ethical attention toward the beings she encounters.