In her more than three decades as a visual artist, Darlene Kulig never imagined her artwork would be featured on face masks.

Yet for this Toronto-based artist, the COVID-19 curveball has inspired a way to raise money for cancer research in memory of a beloved nephew, Craig Kulig, who succumbed to the disease four years ago.

A graduate of the Ontario College of Art (now OCAD U) Kulig studied communications and design, graduating in 1984. She describes herself as a “semi-abstracted spirited landscape artist” who paints natural environments that speak to her heart, in a style influenced by Group of Seven painter Lawren Harris, that she infuses with “luminosity and vibration.”