It was a painting with a "wow" factor, entitled simply Egmont, by local artist Kim Lafave that inspired a new group show opening May 10 at the Westwind Gallery in Gibsons. Gallery owner and artist Morley Baker saw Lafave's image of the flat, broad dock and horizontal band of mist hovering over the water and realized how important docks and wharves are to Coast dwellers.
"I thought it would be fun to do a show with this theme," he said. "It's our common connection. We're either waiting for a ferry (Baker lives on Gambier Island) or we're using our own dock."
He suggested the theme to local and Vancouver artists, and each artist agreed to produce an original piece.
Baker was keen to see how each artist would treat the same theme. He was not disappointed, because 17 artists offer 17 ways of seeing. The styles and techniques of the 17 are diverse, even though the content is often similar. A case in point are the works of Greta Guzek and of Josefa Fritz Barham. They show the same content - fishing boats moored by a narrow dock, but they contrast greatly in their use of colour and style down to the last details: the grain of the dock boards, the shiny red bumpers.
Baker describes an anecdote learned during his art history education: two impressionists, Monet and Manet, painted the same Parisian scene at the same time of day during the same light, yet the resulting pictures were strikingly different. Each had imposed his own distinctive qualities. For this show, several artists have chosen to convey only a suggestion of the theme, such as Ian Macleod with his characteristic abstract style. Others have wandered even further away from the notion of a physical structure: Todd Clark suggests the colours and ambience one might feel while on a dock in his enigmatically titled A Dock for Now.
Carol Whittaker of Gambier Island with her painting, A Crab Looks Up, has created an impression of a wharf in liquid greens as it might look from a crustacean's point of view. Nadina Tandy also looked at the dark underside of the wharves to render her diptych, acrylic on canvas.
"They piqued my interest," Tandy said. "I took my camera down there [to Gibsons wharf] to document when light passes through." The result is an essay in negative and positive space.
Pauline Lawson also gives a stunning suggestion of a wharf using her big brush strokes. The delicacy of colour, a wash of aqua on white in a white frame, is a spare presentation.
"It's a simple, sophisticated piece," said Baker. The whimsical is represented in Gloria Masse's rendition of the Owl and the Pussycat of storybook fame. They are, of course, setting off in their beautiful pea green boat, but the sturdy timbers they pose on look remarkably similar to those of a West Coast wharf.
Lenore Conacher displays a strong graphic presence in bold colour that teases the eye. The viewer can sense a boat in the painting, yet the eye cannot clearly define it. Cindy Riach is a newcomer to the Coast whose very realistic paintings of boats at harbour are a familiar scene. Kiff Holland, formerly of the Coast, will show two paintings, one an unusual perspective of a harbour at night. Other Vancouver artists on show are Bruce Woycik with two works, one figurative. It depicts a mother, perhaps, and two children waiting on a gloomy dock, coats buttoned up and huddling together, while the other painting is a cheerful Vancouver scene of the tiny passenger ferry in False Creek.
Photography is also represented in this show. Sechelt's Keith Thirkell will participate while David Gray displays his delightful black and white archival look print that features a naked jumper leaping off a rough plank dock.
The group show opens at the Westwind Gallery with a reception on Saturday, May 10, from 4 to 7 p.m. The public is invited to meet the artists.
