Monday, February 28, 2011

Corey Hochachka (Edmonton Skyline)


Corey Hochachka
Edmonton Skyline
photograph

Corey Hochachka is an award winning, accredited, professional living in St. Albert, and his love for the outdoors and its Creator has instilled in him a passion for photographing nature and its inhabitants. He began fine tuning his talents in 1990 and has been pursuing his calling professionally since 1998.  Throughout Corey's career as a lensman, he has excelled in the areas of commercial advertising, industrial, stock and fine-art photography, as well as unique portrait and pet images. In February 2010 the Professional Photographers of Canada judged Corey the Alberta Commercial Photographer of the Year.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Judith Hall (Reflections at Sunset)


Judith Hall
Reflections at Sunset
30 x 20"


Judith E. Hall is a Calgary artist who grew up camping, hiking and canoeing in the Rockies.   The scenery of Alberta has always been a source of inspiration for her work although her subjects are many and varied.  A love of travel has led her to explore many beautiful places in our world.  Judith’s art training was received in Calgary and she always painted even while obtaining a PhD in organic chemistry.   Her work has been used in books, on posters, calendars and cards and signs, and is found in The Alberta Foundation for the Arts collection.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Darlene Adams (Forms of Nature #1 Deep Rooted)


Darlene Adams
Forms of Nature #1 Deep Rooted
painting, 2011

These are the first in my new series" The Forms of Nature"
The first one is called 'deeprooted"  Born and raised in Edmonton , painting is my passion .
I am currently a memeber of the VAAA, Edmonton Arts Council, The Canadian Artists for The Poor , Artwalk Artists, Artscapes Canada/Pays-Art, nad CARFAC.
My paintings have been shown in various places around Edmonton , Calgary, California , and are displayed in homes throughout North america and as far away as New Zealand.
My series" Freedom" is currently being represented by The Agora Gallery , NYC for a year.

Friday, February 25, 2011

John Richardson (Morning in Lucania)


John Richardson
Morning in Lucania, 2005
acrylic on canvas
4 x 6"

A little statement by John Richardson


I make pictures of things I like to look at.  Some others seem to like looking

at them too.

For some years I have chosen to use a quite limited palette -- a particular

palette for each series of paintings.  My Italian series (Morning in Lucania)

and my sketches (Camilla) use only red ochre, yellow ochre, lamp black, and zinc

white. 

For my series of paintings of southeastern Saskatchewan I chose red and yellow

ochre again and replaced black with pthalo blue (Eastend Sketch 1).  I also used

this pallet for my series 'Figures in a Streetscape' and for a number of Alberta

scenes (The Letourneau Family at Cold Lake).

For my latest series I've moved completely to modern pigments, but still only

four:  titanium white, pthalo blue, cadmium yellow, and quinacridone violet

(Looking Back Again).


Thursday, February 24, 2011

Father Douglas (Her Beauty Sleep)


Father Douglas
Her Beauty Sleep, January 2009
graphite, 9 x 12"



Although I enjoy painting and drawing landscapes, I have chosen dogs as my primary subject matter, for dogs are a subject used since cave drawings.  Dogs were a popular subject in hunt scenes from the renaissance through to the genre paintings of the Impressionists and continue to be a popular subject for contemporary artists.

I have now come to comprehend that an artist must truly love or hate their subject in order to paint with conviction.  It is only when this emotional unification exists between the artist and subject can the artist truly paint with the passion necessary to create their art.  I strive as I paint and draw with confidence and an adventurous spirit for this bond.

The images I present to you are of works I have created using one of my favourite models.  The first image is a simple line drawing in graphite which emphases the fluidity and gracefulness of my models movements, while the second work is a painting in acrylics on Mylar.  This work based on the paintings Venus de Urbino by Titian and Olympia by Manet presents a light-hearted look at the theme of Art History.  My third image, also painted in acrylics on Mylar, uses the dog as an allegory for humankind and represents man’s fears of darkness and lightning storms.  The forth image is more enigmatic and presents to the viewer several stories which the most likely story chosen by the viewer will be the most tragic.  In this work I wish to draw ones attention to a very real topic that is often covered up or hidden and needs to be discussed openly and without shame. This work painted in acrylics is on Yupo, another form of plastic film similar to Mylar.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Pam Weber (Dance Around the Room)


Pam Weber
Dance Around the Room
acrylic on canvas, 2010
8 x 8"



I am attracted to the narrative of imagery.
I’ve always made pictures: pictures that record what I see, or what’s in my imagination; a culmination of experience and education; pictures that tell a story.
I have worked in different mediums over the years, notably printmaking and mixed media collage but settled in quite comfortably with acrylic paint. It indulges my love of colour and my desire, for the most part, to create images that display a sense of well-being for the viewer.
My initial idea often requires research and takes form as pencil touches paper. Heavy outline, strong shapes, interaction of positive and negative space, colour play, marking, and layering are very apparent in my finished work.
My canvas is dominated by the personification of the inanimate or anthropomorphism of the natural; a fabricated world, an escape from the day to day vicissitudes of life.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Linda Daoust (Protecting the Innocent)






Linda Daoust
Protecting the Innocent

acrylic on canvas


From the moment of conception our cells
are equal. What exactly happens to these
cells to create good or evil? How does evil
change us? How can good change us? Can
we change through osmosis…or do we
change because of attrition? Do we even
have the biological capacity to change?
In death we are equal again. As our cells break down we become one
and the same. Can we separate “bad” cells from the “good ones”? Is
there a difference?

I want to look deep inside us all: to try to understand what we are
doing to this planet …..paint on canvas is just touching the surface….
however the longer I spend on a particular canvas the deeper I go into
my psyche to try to understand what motivates me….and perhaps
by spending some time looking at my paintings I can reach inside of
you…..and together we can discover something about the human
condition, the Human Stain.

linda.daoust@shaw.ca
www.artistsincanada.com/daoust
Willow Studio, Calgary and Saskatoon

Monday, February 21, 2011

Roberta Murray (Prairie Snow)


Roberta Murray
Prairie Snow
pigment print, December 2010

16 x 24"

Roberta Murray approaches photography much the same as the Pictorialist
photographers of the late 1800's early 1900's, to tell a more personal,
interpretative story. Art, in one form or another has always played a big
part in Roberta's life. After studying photography in the late 1980's,
Roberta abandoned the medium to pursue the fibre arts while living and
working on farm raising sheep and goats. It was her work in the fibre arts
that lead her to develop her unique style of photography by adopting the
same principals of colour, texture and depth used in textiles.

I am a picture maker. I think I've always been one. I am also a dreamer.
From as far back as I can remember I've occupied my time with making
pictures as an escape from a sometimes harsh world. Pictures that often
represented a bygone era or way of life far removed from reality. It is with
a combination of traditional techniques, historical ideas and contemporary
tools that I approach photography, using the camera more as a paintbrush
than a mechanical device to create evocative images reminiscent of those
created by the Pictorialist photographers. In my images, I am manipulating
the truth as an escape from reality to express my dreams and personal
visions of the world. It isn't based so much on what exists, as it is on
what I wish existed - a constructed representation.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Ann Haessel (Back Country #1)


Ann Haessel
Back Country #1
mixed media, 2009
12 x 10 x 2.5"


Ann works intuitively while being driven by her inner feelings and views on social issues.   Recent organic pieces are very textural.  These unusual works combine abstraction and realism and are open to interpretation.  She creates three-dimensional images with multiple layers of different media.  Many pieces portray the environment with its continual evolution which is a metaphor for change.  Unusual products are used and often burned to represent the complexity of life.

Ann’s art is has been exhibited in Italy, New York City and throughout Canada.  She hopes her art will create a better understanding among people of the world.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Robert Dmytruk (Image Perception #1)


Robert Dmytruk
Image Perception #1
acrylic and oil on canvas


Dmytruk's work explores the interplay between how we choose to map the world in order to impose a logical order on it and the natural unnerving world that threatens to engulf us. It confronts the dissonance between what we see, what we know and what we sense. Dmytruk's exhibition "Accumulated Perception" will be on display at the VAAA Gallery in Edmonton from February 24th until March 26th, 2010.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Huong Nguyen (Storm)


Huong Nguyen
Storm, November 2010
acrylic on canvas
40 x 40"

Huong Nguyen a local artist and is relatively new to the Edmonton art scene.  Her unique semi abstract style provides much feast for the eyes.  Her use of color and multiple layers of opacity make her paintings come alive with motion and mystery.  As a self taught artist, she was selected as feature artist at the Spruce Grove Art Gallery and had her 1st gallery show in January 2011.  She has a keen feel for acrylic, playing with transparent strokes with more translucent and opaque ones that are well executed to capture her theme of water reflecting color and light. 

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Kathryn Manry (Reflection: the Sierras - California)


Kathryn Manry
Reflection: the Sierras - California
oil on canvas
27.5 x 29"


The water series examines the many faces of this natural element in its variety of forms – which may be the calm, reflective surface of lake, the wave forms on the ocean... My task is to identify the natural dynamic that produces this interesting watery form or design in nature, and to then translate that into paint, working with compositional choices to portray the inherent visual qualities of water. “Clipped out” from the natural environment, I enjoy how these images can flip back and forth between a fairly literal depiction of a watery scene and, if the reference to the source is set aside, a very abstract composition. Kathryn Manry's exhibition "The Nature of Water" will be exhibited at the VAAA Gallery in Edmonton from February 24th to March 26th, 2011.