Installation Shots at The Reach, Abbotsford

Here are some installation shots of the show in Abbotsford:

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

"New Beginnings" Group Exhibition

I just learned that one of my paintings is presently on exhibition in the small gallery at Art Placement in Saskatoon.  The company is excellent:  William Perehudoff, Jonathan Forrest, and Lorenzo Dupuis.  This is how we look:

Thanks to the powers to be at Art Placement for including me.

Paintings Ready for Shipment

Here are some of my paintings ready for pick-up and delivery to The Reach Gallery in Abbotsford. It took me a while to figure out how to pack them but a big roll of bubble wrap helped.

Triangle Workshop 30 Year Anniversary

This year is the 30th anniversary of the Triangle workshop, which first took place in Mashomack in upstate New York.  I attended in 1983 and again in 1993. My studio space was on the cavernous top floor of the big old dairy barn and I have vivid sensual memories of the hot dry space.  Other artists were strewn throughout the barns and outbuildings, while the sculptors worked outside.  For lunch, we sat on the grass under the trees and feasted on the tasty food they trucked over from the club house.  (It was an old dairy farm, but converted to a fishing club.)

As a painter of landscape, I revelled in the surrounding scenery with its gently rolling hills and expansive cornfields.  One of the visiting artists, Graham Nickson,  suggested that I set up outside and go crazy with big cans of oil paint :

It was a challenge, but fun.  However the hardest part was getting the cans of oil paint back to Canada. I couldn't pack them with me because they are considered flammable; and none of the courier companies would accept them for shipment to Canada.  Finally, another artist came to my rescue.  Ron Shuebrook very kindly put the box into his vehicle which he was driving back to Ontario, and then put the paints on a bus to Vancouver.  He was a true friend.

Trees as Paintings

When I was at the Emma Lake workshop this summer in Northern Saskatchewan, I used tree imagery as starting point for my paintings.  You can see from this photo that I am continuing with this in my studio in Vancouver:

The tree imagery is what gets me going; it is colour, drawing and surface that carry me forward.

Sketchbooks

Here is an example of how I work in my sketch books, recording things around me and taking them back to the studio:

This was part of an installation called The Primary Mark at Diane Farris Gallery as part of the Vancouver Drawing Festival in 2010.