As a creative child, Toronto-based visual artist Mike Donohue spent many happy hours with his grandmother, learning to crochet.
With a lifelong interest in art and a background in art history, he has always created art in one form or another, but it wasn’t until life slowed down during the pandemic that he rediscovered his love for for this versatile fibre art.
It started when he wanted to make a crochet border on a blanket he was knitting, and then, as he realized how much he enjoyed it, he decided to make a project for a friend, and then another one, and another one. But he soon grew bored with standard patterns and started exploring making individual pieces like flowers and leaves. It was time for a new challenge—how to put all the separate components together in a stand-alone piece. And just like that, his signature style was born: a plantscape in free-form crochet that flows seamlessly, full of vibrant, luminous colour.