Bortolo Marola was born in Marola di Chiuppano, in northern Italy, just a few short miles from the Palladian centers of Vicenza, Verona, and Venice, where, like a good wine, music, or song, art is embraced and regarded as an integral part of everyday life.  For Bortolo, art has been a life-long journey of exploration that began when he won all three top prizes in a national art competition while still in grade school.

  After immigrating to Canada and completing high school, Bortolo went on to study at the Kootenay School of Art and with the American School of Art in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as well as at Douglas College and Kwantlen University College where he received a Fine Arts Diploma. Ultimately, he and his wife Judy settled in White Rock, on the Semiahmoo Peninsula, to raise their family.

  Bortolo constantly challenges his creativity by working in various media. His fascination with light and compositional elements fills his paintings with beauty and passion that is much sought after by both collectors and students alike. Bortolo's work is all about emotion, colour, and distilling the fleeting moment of inspiration: that evanescent spark that stimulates his imagination and compels him to cry out with joy at the sight of a sunbeam filtering through the silence of a mist-shrouded shore. Always he seeks to capture that instant and the beauty around him, and to share his vision with the world.

  Bortolo is a member of the Federation of Canadian Artists. He has had numerous successful exhibitions both in Canada and in his native Italy where he has developed a large following and has received much critical acclaim. His work has been selected for calendar and magazine covers and his paintings are held in both corporate and private collections across Canada, the U.S., Japan, Britain, and Italy.