Andrea Manica is a freelance mural painter, illustrator and artist living in Hamilton Canada since October 2022. She graduated from OCAD University in Toronto with a Bachelor of Design in Illustration in 2013. 

Andrea has been painting large-scale murals since the summer of 2013, with most pieces being completed on exterior surfaces. In Toronto, she has worked with organizations Street Art Toronto, STEPS, Bell Box Murals, and with different neighbourhood BIAs. She also works with individuals in their homes, with local businesses and with corporations. She participated in her first mural festival in summer 2023 in Kentville Nova Scotia by painting three separate murals in one week. Andrea has painted murals in Los Angeles USA, Tokyo Japan, Melbourne Australia, and Yogyakarta Indonesia. The Toronto Star, CBC, The Globe and Mail, CTV, Global News and ABC News have featured articles about Andrea's mural work. 

Andrea and her friends Nicole D'Amario and Melissa Luk formed a female and queer centric mural collective in 2014 called the Buck Teeth Girls Club. Caitlin Taguibao joined the BTGC the following year. The collective has completed pieces together throughout Southern Ontario. Melissa and Andrea traveled to Argentina for a mural painting residency at Proyecto Ace in 2015. Andrea, Caitlin, and Melissa collaborated on community murals in Yogyakarta Indonesia in 2018. In 2017, Caitlin and Andrea began working as a duo, with their 400 foot long mural for Daniel’s Corporation. Most recently, they collaborated on a staircase installation that appeared on the York Street Steps in Ottawa in 2020, and subsequently in Frankfurt Germany for the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2021.

Andrea also works as a freelance illustrator, completing pieces by hand with ink and gouache, as well as digitally. She began by designing promotional posters for events in Kitchener Ontario in 2005. She has created logos and accompanying images to magazine articles and advertisements. Past illustration clients include Palm Bay Spritz, Second Cup, Today's Parent Magazine and Chatelaine Magazine.

Andrea has found success as a tattoo artist, under the moniker Andy Small, working in a studio setting since 2016. She draws flash pages by hand, and completes tattoos with a hand-poke, machine-free method. She has worked in Toronto studios such as Lost Boys, Tapestry Collective, Seven Eight, and 1132 Dundas Street East.

Andrea has exhibited her drawings, paintings, and 3D works at The Far Side Gallery Hamilton, Likely General in Roncesvalles Toronto, Keikyu Mall in Yokohama Japan, and the Idea Exchange in Cambridge Ontario. Her personal work is inspired by feelings, symbols, themes of belonging, and our relationship to the natural world. Andrea is a member of the LGBT+ community and this informs her artwork and practice.


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