If you’re walking near Trace Manes Park most mornings, you may run into Beverly Furer with her elegant dog Asta, a Silken Windhound named after Fred Astaire for his nimble flying feet. Stop and chat, and you’ll discover that Beverly is a dedicated and brave artist. She bucks prevailing trends and stays true to her passion for her favourite style of painting.
Whether creating a painting or mural, inside or outside, she emulates the Flemish style and possesses encyclopedic knowledge of the Dutch and Flemish Masters like Rubens, Van Dyck and Rembrandt and their unique artistic process to create lifelike portraits.
According to Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum, host to a Flemish Masters exhibition, Saints, Sinners, Lovers and Fools, 300 Years of Flemish Masterworks, from June 28 to Jan 18, 2026, this 15th-century revolutionary Flemish painting technique was developed in Flanders, Belgium. These highly detailed artworks involve stages: first, preparing the canvas, then underpainting and glazing with multiple layers of paint to achieve a realistic and luminous effect. The technique is known for its meticulous attention to detail and ability to replicate reality. All are superbly displayed in Beverly’s Eugeniy Chevkenov with violin artwork.
Furer’s home is her studio, where her working space consumes her entire living room. Every corner, surface, and the recently acquired antique desk artfully store brushes, canvases, palette knives, and artworks. The room with its large window is anchored by a substantial wooden easel. Even the surrounding hallway bursts with paintings. Asta does have studio privileges, staking out the couch as his domain until he’s gently shooed off when company or a client arrives.
Beverly’s Flemish style artwork has a small yet growing fan base. She lamented that “after working two jobs for decades to support myself and my painting, I’m just beginning to build up a little inventory of my artwork.”
She added, “Masters style painting requires many hours. Mixing and experimenting with subtle pigment modifications and layering paint take time, reflection, and more time. My Chevkenov violin artwork will likely require another 50 hours to complete.”
Asked how she knows when she is done, Beverly paused then commented, “That’s hard to say. More often I feel like I’ve learned all it can teach me, or my attention has turned to another piece I’m finishing or keen to start.”
Beverly also paints murals so lifelike you can easily imagine the owl taking flight or being tempted to smell the flowers decorating the walls of Orangeville’s Café La Finis, which sadly recently closed its doors.
Beverly confessed, “I’m a trickster. My art tricks your eye into seeing things in 3D or something that isn’t there. It’s all about light and shadow. Imagine you’re sitting outdoors at a café awaiting a friend’s arrival. You see someone approaching yet you can’t quite make out their face. What you do see are blocks of light and shadow, so exciting to me as an artist, and that compels me to my canvas to capture the inspirational beauty I see especially when I walk around Leaside.”
Instagram: @beverlyfurer.
