Reiss is a painter, creator of multimedia performance events and installations, designer of architectural projects, costumes, gardens, and furniture.

Reiss was invited to create work for the 2006 Echigo-Tsumari Triennial; one of the largest international art exhibitions in Japan and considered the Japanese equivalent of the Venice Biennale.

The art project was entitled Satoyama Storehouse and featured the portraits of the inhabitants of Hachi, a small rice farming village in the mountains of Japan.

The gallery's interior is covered in cut ceramic plates with tiled portals flanked by curved walls and moldings – an architectural work of art where everything seems to be folding in on itself.

Reiss has painted many notable artists, performers, public personalities and philanthropists, including: Quote from Deirdre Kelly, Curating at Home, Globe and Mail July 6, 2007.

But in the case of Toronto-based painter Vivian Reiss, collecting is as much of a passion as invigorating a blank canvas with her trademark bursts of colour."

"She found the generous spirit of her subjects amazing, considering the perception that the Japanese are a people who hide their emotions, 'During the process of painting them, they opened up.