Pat O'Hara | In Memoriam | April 19, 1936- December 6, 2025

It is with deep sadness that we acknowledge the passing of Vancouver-based artist Pat O’Hara on December 6, 2025 at the age of 89. She was a treasured part of Bau-Xi Gallery for over 40 years.

The artist in her studio, 2018.

Pat was an established painter whose work captured the interplay of emotion, environment, and creative impulse. Working primarily in acrylic paint, she embraced a “game of challenge, chance and obsession,” letting travel, memory and personal lived experiences guide her spontaneous layering of line, paint, weaving of canvas and incorporation of mixed media and found objects to produce sensuous movement and vivid energy. 

Review by critic Art Perry for The Province, February 9, 1984.

Born in Burns Lake, BC in 1936, Pat attended elementary school in Osoyoos where her mother became a beloved elementary school teacher. Pat was incredibly close to her mother, and from her developed her own passion for teaching art to young children.

Early on, Pat attended the Banff School of Fine Arts and started her professional career creating moody ink and acrylic studies of old Vancouver houses and buildings. Gastown was a favorite hunting ground for subjects. In February 1972, one of Pat’s paintings of Gaoler’s Mews was featured on the cover of Dick MacLean’s Guide magazine. 

Left: Cover of Dick McLean's Guide magazine featuring Pat's painting of Gaoler's Mews, Vancouver, 1972. 
Right: Pat O'Hara, Colours, fabric on textile, 1977.

In the summer of 1973, with a drive to further her practice and broaden her influences, Pat brought her family to Mexico for a summer of study in San Miguel at the Instituto de Allende. At this time her vision of painting, and the act of painting, started to change profoundly. Easy scenes of the familiar started to morph into layers of abstract complexity, woven thick with texture and colour.

Magnolia 2 (left) and Fan Cycle 29 - two examples of Pat O'Hara's work from the late 1990s-2001.


Pat continued to hone her artistic vision at the University of British Columbia and the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr College of Art + Design), graduating with the Merit Award for painting in 1981. Over the course of this journey, she took great inspiration from heroes like Jack Shadbolt and Gordon Smith, the latter of whom would become both teacher and mentor. Pat joined Bau-Xi Gallery in 1984 - a partnership that introduced her expressive works to audiences across Canada.

Metamorphose, a 35 x 83 inch work in acrylic on panel from 2019.


Over her long career, Pat explored diverse techniques, from dragging paint-dipped strings across canvas to collage, cutting and weaving, always searching for new forms of movement and expression. Her art lives on in private and public collections across Canada, including corporate and public institutions such as Air Canada, Pan Pacific Hotel Vancouver, Scotiabank, Citibank, and Polygon Homes.


The artist in her studio, circa 2020.



Pat O'Hara, Flying 2. Acrylic on Panel, 36 x 72 inches.


Pat also remained dedicated to teaching art to children, with a passion for supporting and encouraging the unrestricted creativity of preschoolers. For years she shared this joy for art, teaching preschool classes at Arts Umbrella on Granville Island. There she was not only the teacher of children but was also a teacher and mentor of young teachers to be.

Pat O'Hara, circa 1980s.


Pat O’Hara’s art is a record of inner and outer landscapes, a joyful openness to experimentation, and an enduring dialogue possessing authentic emotional resonance. We celebrate the beauty, spirit and energy she shared with the world through her work.
We gratefully acknowledge Pat's son David Schneider for his contributions to the writing above.

In Pat's honour we proudly re-post the wonderful short film "Pat O'Hara in Her Studio", created by her son Jason Schneider in 2020, in which the artist reveals glimpses of her process and reflects on her multi-decade-long artistic practice.