A celebration of the year's best Canadian writing

Oil paintings by Sal Wiltshire draw the viewer in to the layered relationship between humans and their environments—both natural and built—to consider their own impact and experience within a space. This moment is at the core of her paintings of both still interiors and wild landscapes. Through her use of colour, light, composition and a loose gestural approach, Wiltshire’s paintings unfold slowly, revealing moments of tenderness, tension, and quiet observation. Her work nudges us to toward discovering the subtle ways in which these places hold memory or connection to something beyond ourselves, leaving space between the brushstrokes for something personal to take shape.

Sal grew up on the West Coast of Canada, graduating with a Bachelor or Arts (2014), Masters in History (2017) and Bachelor of Education (2021). Turning to oil painting became a way to communicate her concern with what feels like an increasingly fractured relationship between humanity and our environments. After beginning to paint in 2022, Wiltshire’s work quickly gained recognition from local collectors, art consultants and galleries. Her paintings have been exhibited in public and private galleries since 2022, and she has been a finalist in SSNAP Parallel Art Show (2023) and the Sooke Fine Art Juried Exhibition (2024, 2025). Collectors of her work span across Canada, the United States and the UK. She is currently based on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, located within the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, specifically the Hul'qumi'num- and SENĆOŦEN-speaking communities.

'Rooms Of Their Own' is a project to celebrate the breadth of literary talent in Canada, by highlighting a selection of authors, playwrights and poets in a series of paintings with a unique perspective. This collection of oil paintings features the physical spaces in which some of Canada‘s greatest writers have produced their most significant work. The paintings form a collection that tells a story of Canadian literary genius that spans decades, and it showcases physical spaces that ask us to pause and consider what might have inspired them and where their ideas take flight. It has been a labour of love to bring my vision to life. Most importantly, it has been an honour to be entrusted by each author with the opportunity to capture and commemorate their creative spaces – the rooms in which they write.