A Determined Vision

I am delighted that my painting Coral Masters was chosen by the City of Victoria for inclusion in their kiosk animation project. You can see Coral Masters at the Centennial Square Parkade and checkout out the map on their website for details of all the locations of work by some super talented local artists. This project embodies Create Victoria’s vision “to thrive as a place for everyday artistic encounters.”

A state of semi-lockdown has returned to Vancouver Island. I was due to take part in the annual member’s show at Xchanges in December however it was cancelled to try and slow the spread of Covid-19. Understandable but dissapointing. Xchanges will be going ahead with an online exhibition of the drawing from the virtual life drawing sessions that took place during the first lock down and I will share a link to that when it is available.

Before lockdown commenced I got together with a small number of my Thrive Ladies to see the Emily Carr – Fresh Seeing exhibition at The Royal BC Museum. It was lovely to see my group in person and the show was really well put together and comprehensive. The main focus of the show was Emily’s Paintings completed during her time in France. I felt that I really got to see another side to her work. It was so interesting to see her influences and the development in her style. I was inspired by Emily’s determination to continue experimentation and growth in her work even in the face a of a conservative audience when she returned back to Victoria.

Another show that I was able to get to was Liam O’Sullivan’s, Nature Preserve at Xchanges Gallery. Liam experiments with “absurdism and humor to present a landscape of playfully fluctuating possibilities, that we may explore and celebrate these unsung parts of ourselves.” The show consisted of mostly monochromatic, large scale, oil painting and some video installation. Looking into the landscape paintings I was reminded of the feeling of seeing a forest at dusk when the mind imagines seeing faces and wild animals in the shapes of branches and rocks (if you are interested, I just discovered that there is a word for this phenomenon and it is ‘pareidolia’). I really enjoyed this show, the landscape element of the paintings felt familiar and yet simultaneously jarring and otherworldly.

I continue plugging away in my studio and getting together with my fellow artists via Zoom for now.