Inside the private art collection of La Banane and CXBO Chocolates co-owner Sarah Keenlyside

Sarah Keenlyside has held many jobs: CBC producer, Sundance film fest staff, nail technician and, currently, co-owner of the Ossington bistro La Banane and the chocolate shop CXBO with her husband, Brandon Olsen. One thing has stayed constant: her love of art with bold colours, expressive geometry and lots of pizzazz. Many of the 50 or so works in her gorgeous Kensington Market loft have direct connections to her experiences and memories. “My mom was a public art consultant, so there was no such thing as a blank wall in my home as a child,” she says. “When I went to university, I picked a bunch of pieces from my mom and asked for them. I’ve been collecting since I was 18.” Here, we asked Keenlyside to tell us the stories behind some of her favourite pieces.

Here’s the house’s front hallway:

The walls of the living room are crowded:

Here’s another wall in the living room:

Here’s the kitchen (Toronto Life also took a closer look into Keenlyside’s fridge):

A couple of pieces hang near the door to the bedroom:

Across the ladder, there are more works:

And here’s the rest of the bedroom:

Artist James Nizam got permission to cut holes and create art in the walls of a Vancouver housing project that was being torn down. This shot captures multiple triangles in two different rooms:

The Hollow Tree is a famous photo spot in Vancouver’s Stanley Park. “The city was going to remove it and people freaked out.” So Douglas Coupland built a golden, almost-to-scale version of the hollow tree at a downtown street corner. “I did a piece about it for the CBC, so he gave me one of the models”: