Black Velvet Paintings

You know those treasures we can still find in second-hand stores, the paintings painted on real velvet?  They gave me the idea of starting with a black canvas, which is the opposite of how I have traditionally worked.  Using different blues, reds, and yellows, I mixed my own blacks, then layered thin washes on the canvas until the surface reached a rich matt finish.  This formed the base for the brush marks I placed on top, the marks thick and thin, opaque and transparent, with their edges jagged or smooth depending on how the brush draws across the canvas.  The dark grounds make the colours pop, but also the dark grounds make a wonderful surface to draw on.  Below you can see the steps I took to paint a Black Velvet painting.  

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My First Studio outside of my Home

 My first studio downtown was in the Gault Building on Water Street.  They made work clothes and overalls during the depression and Second World War;  my uncle told me that one of the workers was killed when he fell down the freight elevator shaft and the next day there was a line-up of people out the door and down the street, hoping to get the job.  

One brave day in 77 or so, when my kids were finally in school full time,  I ventured down to Gastown to meet an agent about renting a space for a studio.  This building eventually became a fine part of the Gastown restoration project, but at the time it was pretty empty above the bottom three floors.  

For around $75 a month, I was able to rent a great space on the top floor and my husband came down and built a wall so that I could lock my door.  The view out the window was the Vancouver waterfront and the North Shore mountains.  

Because I was paying the grand sum of $75 a month, I hurried there at every opportunity that I had.  I painted the view out the window, I painted from sketches and watercolours I made around the city, and I set up still lives to paint from.  I painted and painted and painted.

When you are painting that much, eventually you build up a body of work that you would like to exhibit. In 1979 I approached The Studio Shop in West Vancouver and they gave me my first solo exhibition.  Recently I counted up and I have had 55 solo exhibitions since then and participated in over 65 group shows.  

I have had some nice studios over the years, but I think that was my favourite.   

On the Question of Changing Your Style

 

                        Photo from 'A Life of Picasso The Minotaur Years, 1933-1943' by John Richardson

I was so surprised to see that these portraits of a woman's head (I forget which one it was, maybe Dora Maar) were both painted in 1939.  Look how different they are!  One is a somewhat realistic depiction of a woman with a cute green hat.  We would know who it is if it were a friend.  The other one however is a strange contortion of a head and body, sort of surrealist, and only the people on the inside know who it is intended to be.

Many times I am chastising myself because I keep changing my 'style', if you can call it that.  I go back and forth from a more realistic depiction of a landscape to a minimalist abstraction with only a few clues as to what it is.  For instance, here is a lake that I painted inn 1999:

Chaperon's Lake, 38x54", 1999.

You can see it is sort of an impressionist lake scene with shrubs and bushes in the foreground, then the water of the lake and the view across it.  However, here is another lake that I painted in 1988:

Lake Shapes, 40x50", 1988.

It is so different. There was time to change because they were painted 10 years apart.  But Chaperon's Lake is more similar to the work I did in the 80's when I was first starting out; and Lake Shapes is hinting at what I went on to paint in the early 2000's.  I guess I sometimes I have to remind myself that I can still do something, to reassure myself that I am still me.  And it is actually really boring if you are just repeating yourself.  When you are in your studio regularly you have lots of ideas and you want to try them all.  Many famous artists do it with no qualms at all.  Look at Gerard Richter - his two different styles are extremely apart from each other, all abstract to photographic reality.  

Arbitration Place on Bay Street in Toronto

Nikola Rukaj Gallery in Toronto has placed some of my paintings at Arbitration Place on Bay Street. They will be up for June and July this summer.  I hope they are aiding the discussions and 'arbitration' taking place!

Here are a couple of them: 

'Layers-I', 36x48"

'Minder', 69x65"

'Tree Trunk' Paintings Sent to Nikola Rukaj

Recently I sent some paintings to the Nikola Rukaj Gallery in Toronto.  These particular canvases are abstractions derived from images of tree trunks and they were painted at the Emma Lake Professional Artists Workshop in 2009.

'Tree Trunk 2'  30x24" 2009 

'Tree Trunk 10 (Birch)'  30x24"  2011

'Tree Trunk 9 (Velvet)  30x24"  2010

'Tree Trunk 5'  3-x24"  2009

This is me having fun painting them:

Voices from the Past

Occasionally I will receive a message from someone who has owned a painting of mine for a very long time and they tell me how much they love it.  Twice in the last month I have had such a pick-me-up.

This is one:

     "Switchback View", 46 x 66 inches, acrylic, 1989.

Here is the other:

     "Winter Pass", 36 x 48 inches, acrylic, 1986.

It is extremely rewarding when that happens.

Trees turning into Paintings

I am just packing to drive up to Edmonton for my exhibition there, "Totems", opening July 9, this Saturday at the Scott Gallery.  There will be lots to see on the way, some of my favourite scenery and sources of inspiration.

To elaborate on how 'trees' can become paintings, here is an example of what can happen.

This:

can become this:

Or this:

could become this:

Solo Exhibition at Nikola Rukaj Gallery in Toronto

Several years ago I met Nikola Rukaj  at the retrospective for William Perehudoff’s paintings in Saskatoon.  Later on when I met him at the Toronto Art Fair, Nikola asked if I would like to show some paintings in his gallery in Toronto.  Miriam Shiell started showing my paintings in Toronto in the 1980's, and Gallery One under Goldie Konopny and Sharon Fischtein carried on with that until 2008.  This seemed like a wonderful opportunity, especially to show with a gallery that appreciated the work of a great artist like William Perehudoff.

Now I am pleased to announce the opening of a solo exhibition of my paintings at the Nikola Rukaj Gallery:

You can see the paintings at this link:  PAT SERVICE ABSTRACT LANDSCAPES

"Less & More", exhibition of new paintings, opening May 21st, 2016

This is one of the paintings in my coming exhibition, 'Less & More", at The Gallery/art placement inc., in Saskatoon.

"Turnaround", 2015, 42 x 42 inches. acrylic on canvas


Levi Nicholat, one of the new owners of the gallery,  has written an essay about the paintings, showing an understanding of where I started from in my painting, how I have progressed over the years, and where I am now.  The whole essay is available on their website, but I quote from it here:

"Interestingly, while Service has spent more than a decade exploring a simplified aesthetic, her very recent paintings demonstrate a swing of the pendulum back towards a more lushly impressionistic approach. Features in the landscape are once again more detailed, space is more complex, and there is generally more going on; however, these elements are now contrasted against areas of flat colour and crisp, graphic lines--the signatures of her reduced works. Rather than a return to a previous style, these paintings are actually a complex synthesis of stylistic idioms in the continuing evolution of Service's artistic practice."

Baaa

The owner just sent me a photo of this painting in his office.  What a nice surprise it was to see it after all these years!  The sheep looks very comfortable in that setting.

In the mid-80's I had a lot of fun using animals as subject matter for my paintings.

Going Somewhere?

Although we haven't been in each others' studio for many years, it is curious that my friend Loraine Stephanson and I are both putting roads in our paintings. Roads are something I used to ignore because they seemed hard to integrate into the composition and also because they are man-made, uninteresting.  Now roads are almost central to the painting.  Here are two small paintings from a few years ago, while the two bigger ones that you can't see properly are from this year. Sorry that they are upside down and partially out of the picture.

Paintings Hanging at the University of Saskatchewan President's Residence

It was a nice surprise recently to learn that two of my paintings are hanging in the renovated residence for the president on the University of Saskatchewan campus in Saskatoon.  This is a link to the article in the Star/Phoenix newspaper:

http://thestarphoenix.com/entertainment/local-arts/collecting-saskatchewan-u-of-s-presidents-residence-showcases-best-in-prairie-artwork 

The big landscape "Whereas", 55 x 80", was painted in 1994.  At that time I was starting my canvases in acrylic paint and finishing them with oil paint.  I liked to get a big start with the acrylic, but could achieve more subtlety with the colour by finishing with oil.  (Technically, you cannot start with oil and finish with acrylic because the paint would not hold very well.  But as long as you gesso the canvas first, the reverse is fine.) Here is my photo of it:

When you scroll through the video, you will catch a glimpse of another painting I donated to the university, my "Far Out Chickens".  I don't have a proper photo of it, so here is a photo from the video:

This acrylic is 42 x 56 inches and was painted in 1986.  For a few years I had a lot of fun using animals as subject matter.  

Cheap Brushes

These are the cheap brushes that I use for mixing my colours.  I put some paint into a container and use a plastic spoon or a little whisk to get started, but in the end I grab a brush like this because it does the job so well.  Recently I realized I could actually apply the paint to the canvas with them also.  However, there is no pleasure in the application; it is quite scratchy and rough.  A good brush with good bristles slides over the canvas in a luscious way.    

Online Catalogue/Essay About The Retrospective "Painting This Place"

                                           1983         "Nocturne"      30x36"            acrylic



The Evergreen Centre has produced an online catalogue for my recent exhibition, with an essay by Gregory Elgstrand.  It is viewable at this link:  PAINTING THIS PLACE .  Please click on  Exhibition Catalogue.
   

Retrospective Exhibition at Evergreen Cultural Centre in Coquitlam

March 6 is the opening date for an exhibition of my paintings at the Evergreen Centre in Coquitlam, B. C.  The curator and I went through three decades of my work to select the representative canvases, 16 pieces altogether, just barely skimming the surface of the many directions I have pursued.  It has been quite interesting to look back and one of the things I noticed is that I have ended up not far from where I started.  The paintings are on my website (www.patservice.com) and here is the show announcement:

Portrait Hits The Big-Time

This spring Oliver Simon Design did up the loft of actor Callum Keith Rennie and their work is featured in the current issue of Canadian House & Home (September 2013, P.60).  The designers chose one of my funny portraits for the 'art wall'.  They also hung one of my lake landscapes but, wouldn't you know it,  the editor replaced it with text.

This portrait is part of a series I did a few years ago, with made-up faces from people passing by when I was out and about.   Sometimes friends were the starting point, but I didn't tell them; they wouldn't like how they ended up.  This is one of the last of the series; the paintings were getting too much like real people and I lost interest.

Exhibition at The Reach, Abbotsford

Next week my paintings will be in an exhibition at The Reach Gallery Museum in Abbotsford.  Called "Nests and Trees", this is a two-artist show of Vicky Marshall's 'nest' paintings and my 'trees'.  Curator Scott Marsden notes our 'explorations of minimalism and abstraction' while using nature as a reference point.  Here are three of my contributions to the show:

"Take Me"  70x66 inches  2012 

"Minder"  70x66 inches  2012

"Five Trees"  70x66 inches  2012