Brian Atyeo was born in 1950 in Toronto, Ontario, and passed away in 2024 in Sudbury, Ontario. Early in his career, Atyeo worked as an architectural illustrator across Western and Central Canada before turning to painting full time in 1980, exhibiting in Calgary, Edmonton, and Toronto. Over more than three decades, he developed a practice centred on long-running series, including his well-known Killarney and Algonquin paintings, landscapes historically associated with members of the Group of Seven.

In 2011 Atyeo completed a twenty-year project painting Canada from coast to coast to coast, culminating in a critically acclaimed Newfoundland series that nearly sold out upon exhibition. A later move to Nova Scotia inspired textural ro...