Visual Voice Art Fine Art http://www.visual-voice.ca/fineart/ 128 King St, Truro, NS B2N 1X6 Phone:(902) 843-9464, , , a
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Me at the opening of "I am what I am" at the Chase Gallery on October 5th 2022. Next to me is the portrait of Deva Station, which was the last painting I did for this show. Sadly I don't think I shall be doing any more 6X3foot paintings! I very much appreciated getting to know some of the drag performers who kindly agreed to let me use the photographs I took of them as inspiration for the portraits.
Artist Statement and biography As a biologist and an artist, I feel that we are very much part of nature, and I am very aware of the wonder of the world around us. I find that nature is always unexpected, and am fascinated by the constantly changing appearance of lakes, woods, brooks and fields. When I first came to Canada, I was stunned by the magnificent blaze of red maples, yellow aspens and golden tamaracks in the fall and the interlacing shadows on sparkling snow in winter. These contrast with the piercingly blue sky of sunny fall and winter days, which I rarely saw in England. The relatively short but sunny summer means that there is a colourful parade of flowers to paint in my garden. After a fulfilling career as a research scientist, closure of my DFO laboratory in 1997 led me to pursue my lifetime love of painting, and I graduated from NSCAD in 2005 with a major in Fine Art. My main inspiration in portraying nature has been Tom Thomson, especially his plein air studies. Like him, I enjoy painting in the open air, surrounded by nature, and try to show the vitality of what I experience by using expressive brushwork and vibrant colours. I received the Elizabeth Greenshield's Award for an emerging artist in 2005, and this enabled me to travel around the province to paint. My interest in living things extends to portraying some of the wonderful people I have met. I painted portraits of victims of human rights abuse using information provided by Amnesty International, and in 2010 "Portraits of Injustice" was shown at the Immigration Museum in Halifax, as well as in several venues around NS and in the St John Arts Centre. It was created with the help of a NS creation grant. I also painted portraits for a show celebrating diversity. My contribution was portraits of drag performers, including Brandt Eisner, whom I asked to curate the show. We decided to call it "I am what I am", and he brought in some amazing artists to join me. This show was supposed to be at the Archives in 2020, but was cancelled after the Archives were closed because of the pandemic. The show finally took place this October! The NS Art Bank owns several of my paintings, which are featured in Landscape Painters of Nova Scotia (Nimbus Press), edited by Dee Appleby. Link to review by Elissa Barnard, written in 2005. |