A Gathering of Trees

Gallery members and Invited Guests showcase paintings & photography on the theme of Trees.
Opening: Friday Oct 15 2021, 5-7pm
Exhibit: Oct 16 till Nov 10 2021, 11-4pm , closed on Sundays and Mondays

Come enjoy a great variety of genres: expressionismc/impressionism, surrealism/realism. classical/mystical and more..
Trees are in the spotlight of our counciousness more than ever these days with Fairy Creek reminding us of the few old growth stands remaining on Vancouver Island, with Native American culture’s urgently needed wisdom resurfacing and with biology’s new discoveries on the matter. 

Many travel to the West Coast to meet with Creation’s wonders standing so tall and expressing such resilence and wisdom through the ages.

On Salt Spring, territory of the Saanich, Cowichan, and Chemainus First Nations we are grateful to be surrounded by a few remaining ancient beings, but a tree, no matter its age speaks the poetry of the island’s history, receiving knowledge through it's root system ‘brain’

Painting a tree is painting a great mystery that bridges between the earth and the sky- the earth mother and the sky spirit. 

Painting a tree connects us to the earth’s spiritual intelligence. 

Seeing, listening and feeling a tree opens a place inside that reconnects us to the language of Nature who calls us back home to her. In addition we are liberating the tree to live through the human heart.

Participating Artists:

Cheryl Long painter
Olga Szkabarnicki painter
Lisa Lipsett painter
Nathalie St-Amant painter
Allison Brodie painter
Judy C. Chappus painter
Seth Berkowitz photographer
Paul Bryans painter
Dan Zak painter
Cerika Voce painter
Rolando Lampitoc painter
Patricia Brown painter

Lift- New Paintings by Lisa Lipsett

LIFT

New Paintings by Lisa Lipsett

Sept 24-Oct 13, 2021

Opening Reception 

Saturday Sept 25, 5-7 pm.

LIFT builds on Lisa Lipsett’s current fascination with flight, in particular the free flow movement of moths and butterflies. Flight is wild, spontaneous, playful, full of exuberance, luxurious, a potent antidote to feeling pinned down. It lifts the spirit. Textured wings dusted with warm pink, vibrant tangerine, Salish blue, electric purples and cream rise up in bursts and flourishes in her images.

Lisa Lipsett’s painting style is expressive and nature based. Fascinated by the within of things, she paints the energetic signature of life. Excavated layers of unconventionally mixed and matched materials such as oil, dry pigment, watercolour, gold leaf, graphite and cold wax maximizes creative possibilities. Themes include contemplation, harmony, beauty and belonging. Lipsett is president of the Salt Spring Gallery, an educator with a focus on art and nature, and an avid sailor who loves that extra lift, the boost attained when your nose is pointed up into the wind. 

www.paintwithnature.com

Tree Stories- Oil Paintings by Cheryl Long

August 13-Sept 1, 2021

Opening Reception Friday Aug 13, 2021, 5-7

Tree Stories

Oil Paintings by Cheryl Long
August 13-September 1

This last year in painting has been all about trees-in all their different phases-stumps,
driftwood and those still standing tall in the forest.

I found Port Renfrews’ beach of epic driftwood to be full of stories waiting to be told. On my first visit, camping on the beach, a misty, full-moon night allowed me to get to know the giant, mysterious forms that congregated together, like actors on a stage. I was intrigued by the tales these pieces of driftwood could tell...centuries lived as saplings and trees, so still and peaceful before finally collapsing into the stormy Pacific where wild weather carried them out to sea, and finally back to land. I imagine that, like very old people, their characters become more pronounced with age, and their stories become clearer to those who care to see.

This show also features some beautiful old cedars from Bromley rock near Princeton and Ruckle Park on Salt Spring Island. These powerful characters inspired me to explore their subtleties of shape and colour, and how they support and nurture the life around them.

Last but not least, I turned my attention to stumps. Simultaneously surrendering to the earth, yet still reaching upwards towards the heavens, the majesty of stumps reminded me of my own human condition. I may be grounded, but my spirit still yearns for transcendance.

My goal as an artist is to express the Power and Grace I perceive in the landscape. Even though nature is both complex and subtle, my hope is to weave seemingly chaotic movements of colour and form into one unified expression.

www..Cheryllong.ca

Communion- Plein Air Landscapes by Olga Szkabarnicki

July 23-Aug 11, 2021

Opening reception Friday, July 23

5 to 7

Artist Bio and Statement

Olga practiced Aboriginal law for many years before returning to her love of the human figure in visual art.  In 2010, she exhibited in her first juried art prize show in Ottawa, and has been exhibiting her figurative work ever since.  In 2016, she moved with her husband to a high forested hillside on Salt Spring Island and set up her studio surrounded by towering Douglas fir, enormous-leafed maple, and sinuous arbutus trees, with eagles soaring by at eye-level.

“Salt Spring Island changed me. I see myself primarily as a figurative artist, but once I began entering the forest, listening to it, feeling it around me, something moved within me.  I felt the same passion I feel for the human figure, but on a different level:  an ancient kinship. There is, in the forest, a presence of masculine and feminine and the in-between, in a slowly unfolding drama that sometimes quickens.  For the first time in my life, I wanted to paint the landscape - right there, in the moment, in it.  And so began my plein air landscape painting, which I believe is an extension of my figurativepractice.”

“Communion,” at the Salt Spring Gallery July 23 - August 11, is an intensely personal testament to Olga’s relationship with the forest. The landscapes are all painted outside, in an act of communion with the forest.  They mark the changing colours throughout the day and the play of light from one moment to the next,  The heat of the sun, and the coolness - even cold! - of shade in the same spot as a cloud passes by.  The buzz of the ground bee, the wasp on patrol at the same time each afternoon, the chirp of the tree frog, the gang of chickadees grazing the artist’s shoulder.  The shrew scamperingover her foot.  The sudden crash of a dead tree branch from on high.  The fir needles dropped onto her palette.  These are all present all at once in the layers, textures, and mixtures of Communion.

CROSSROADS- Paul Robert bryans & Lorence Bryans

We are excited to welcome back this father-son duo.

July 2- July 21, 2021

Both father and son, Paul and Lorence Bryans depict the rich colours and motion in Nature in unique inspiring ways.

Complexity comes together with brilliance and ease in Lorence’s digital designs, bringing the viewer into clarity with a sharp energy transfer. His close up photographs are taken from nature and then edited using a digital application to create his signature kaleidoscopic effects.

Paul’s masterful paintings are about a place of calmness and beauty, peace, contemplation, excitement and movement.  The viewer is drawn into familiar comforting places and wild spaces with light and warmth.  Paul’s work describes a place for sublime repose, to take solace, to feel free and to be.

So many of us have had a heightened sense of connection with Nature during this difficult year. At the Crossroads both individually and collectively,  may we all be inspired with a heightened sense of Earth stewardship going forward!

www.bryansfineart.com

 

Taking Flight- Salt Spring Print Makers

June 17- June 30, 2021

Taking Flight features 11 Salt Spring print artists showing new, original works inspired by Patrick bird creations. The birds, made from found objects and feathers, and prints made using a wide variety of techniques, will fly together at the Salt Spring Gallery from June 18- 30.

Two Tides- Paintings by Natalie St Amant

Romantic Plein Air and Abstracts

May 28-June 16, 2021

Artist Statement

In 1988, after receiving my College degree in Visual Fine Arts, I left the academic art world and chose to experience the rich underground art scene of the the street life in Montreal. I soon was on the search for an environment that would encourage artistic lifestyle in a nature setting. My quest took me to Tofino, in Clayoquot Sound. I lived in an abandoned draft dodger's cabin, deep in the old-growth forest, possessed by the spirit of Emily Carr, who wrote, "There is something bigger than fact: the underlying spirit, all it stands for, the mood, the vastness, the wildness. ‘’ This same spirit incubated my work’s mysticism and the desire to sense and interpret its reality.
It was while immersed in the natural vistas of Clayoquot that my inner landscape began to unfold. Nature was my school.

In 1995 I flew to Hawaii, where my Plein Air work matured and also where my ‘’innerscapes’’ emerged.
But Hawaii was not home. 10 years ago I returned to Quebec, partly to nurse my aging parents and partly because i was ready to become visible in the cultural landscapes of Quebec and Canada. Now, back to reclaim my Heart where i left her on the West Coast, i have settled on Salt Spring Island to share the incalculable bounty of romantic mysticism i feel for the land here.

While Plein Air painting is, to me, akin to a reverent pilgrim through cathedrals , my abstract expressionism/surrealism takes me on a profound venture where the landscapes coalesce with the innerscapes of my psyche.

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