Bio

Collin Douma

Canadian/American, 1974-

Born in Woodstock, Ontario, Canada, Douma took a summer painting class when he was 12, but by high school, animation was consuming him. At 17, he got a camcorder and began making traditional animated shorts, winning two film festivals and earning him a place in the National Gallery of Canada's permanent collection for one of his very first efforts.

Douma studied animation at Algonquin College in Ottawa before navigating Toronto's arts scene and a career in New York's advertising industry. Through life's coincidences, he now lives near Woodstock, New York.

After settling into a wooden house in the rapidly drying forests of the Catskill Mountains in 2017, he evolved United Fauna from watercolors into hand-built mixed-media sculptures of creatures appropriating discarded human technology as weapons of resistance.

His work has traveled from Amsterdam to Peekskill, earning him WAAM's 2025 Lisa Williams Social Justice Award for environmental activism through art. 

“His colorful drawings and mixed-media sculptures may appear whimsical at first glance, but they ultimately serve as apocalyptic warnings of the future that awaits if humanity fails to curb the accelerating dangers of climate change.” Nicole Goldberg. Executive Director, WAAM 

"Douma's practice asks fundamental questions about humanity's place in nature." Peter Aaron, Arts Editor, Chronogram. 

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