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A letter from artist Erica Dornbusch
Hello everyone - Big News! Two years ago I married my favourite adventure partner at one of our favourite places on earth, Snow Canyon State Park, Utah. Since then, we've continued living apart while I completed my visa process. The visa journey is not one for the faint of heart, especially during a pandemic with closed international borders. We are beyond thrilled that this summer I will be finally be able to join him to begin the next chapter of our journey together! As a creative, I am a collector of all things; feathers, rocks, books, shells, stories and art supplies (my current rough count of sketchbooks stands at 37). I cannot take it all with me! I am so looking forward to setting up my new studio in our home near the lake and I would love to invite you to join me in an opportunity in nurturing new inspiration in that space. I'd like to invite you to view my collection of work, and to take advantage of the 25% discount that Westland Gallery and I are excited to offer. If you see a piece you love, please reach out to Al, Karen and Danielle. You will save me from moving it, and be a part of planting fresh seeds in my new studio! You might also consider a copy of my book, Paint & Prose, A Way Finder's Meander ($15 OFF), I'd love to sign a copy for you before I meander off on new trails. Prices will be in effect until June 18th 2021 and all work will be available through Westland Gallery. I look forward to begin sharing my new work as it springs to life in this new location. I am thrilled that Westland Gallery and I will continue to remain in touch, and I am sure that your and my paths will cross again. - Erica Click here to browse Erica's work with special pricing.
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 Sarah Hillock's latest work depicts some of the animal kingdom's city dwellers. On raccoons, Sarah says "I see them as a symbol of tenacity and cleverness. They manage to exist in a human made landscape and thrive among us. That's pretty cool. In some ways they reflect us. Some people have really cool stories about raising raccoons or befriending them. And don't forget Farley Mowet lived with raccoons as well as owls!" "Pigeons can hit a top speed of 140 km per hour being the eighth fastest bird in the world. And they're pretty!" Sarah mentions that the only reason many people don't like them is because there are so many of them and they can make a mess in our cities. "That's really our fault though for breeding so many of them, and bringing them everywhere we go. They aren't a native bird to North America we brought them from Europe."
What is your background and what drives you to paint? I completed a bachelor of arts, honours fine arts with a studio specialization at the University of Waterloo followed by a bachelor of education at Wilfrid Laurier University. I hold an MFA from Western University. I'm based in Waterloo and paint full time in my studio in downtown Kitchener. I'm drawn to painting because of its versatility in terms of colour and saturations and its flexibility in application. What are your inspirations/influences and what themes do you pursue in your work? There are a series of confluences that converge on my canvasses. The subject matter is largely the public crowd as a single entity. Some themes in the work are, for example, social influences, gender identities, age related issues, disability, fashion and are illustrated through colour theory and abstract and representational painting.  How has your practice developed over your career?
My practice has become more established as a daily practice of making. I prepare my surfaces by stretching canvas and other cloth over wooden stretchers and prime the surface with layers on layers until it feels right with a certain amount of smooth to tooth ratio before I can begin painting. I have developed a 'prep, paint, plan' method as part of my daily practice to keep my momentum. Prep - prepare my surfaces, Paint - paint something, some days, paint anything! Plan - take time to plan for new work, jot down ideas, reading, make study of a new idea, draw, see a show, art talk, podcast etc... As much of the imagery in your paintings often deals with public encounters and crowds, has the limited social gathering of this past year affected the way you create or think about your work in any way? The lack of source material this year, because I take my own photos for paintings, has resulted in a re examination of the photos I have. So, I'm reusing images from the past in new paintings. What ideas are involved in your current work for the upcoming show? I'm still committed to making work about our social interactions in public spaces. My attention has turned toward the relationship between representation and abstraction through figurative painting.
I spent my money on “How To” art books and dabbled in oil painting on cheap paper and the back of vinyl wallpaper samples. As a young adult I was intrigued by the watercolour practice of my aunt and began to explore this medium for a couple of decades. My love for drawing, painting and colour were intrinsically woven into my fabric as a person that I recognized that life and painting were not separate. What are the inspirations or influences that are involved in your work and are there any specific themes that you choose to focus on? I am a faith filled person. I believe in God. This belief has a profound effect on my life and my practice as an artist. My work is influenced by the struggles and imperfections of our lives and the pursuit of coming to a resolution or acceptance of our surroundings. The struggle between chaos and order, light and dark, is profoundly manifested when I encounter and contemplate a landscape. The layering of paint on my canvas is a slow meditative process that considers all the parts, ever changing but still offering a glimpse into what is hidden.
How has your practice developed over your career? As a self-taught artist, I have always challenged myself to study, learn, and practice art. I started with oil painting but when life became busy with raising a family, I switched to using watercolour because it suited my lifestyle. Although landscape was predominant in my work I dabbled in still life and figures. I painted small intimate watercolours for many years. I began to teach art and explored many mediums in the classroom while concentrating on painting at home. Gradually my small paintings grew in size and when my desire to paint larger than watercolour paper would allow, I switched to acrylic painting. My youngest daughter, while in university introduced me to building frames and stretching my own canvas. This opened up a world of possibility for me and set me on a journey of painting on large canvas which I continue to do to this day. The way you layer organic forms is so captivating, can you tell me more about your process? Do your compositions come about intuitively? My compositions are contemplatively planned. I strive to be purposeful and direct. The landscape provides me with visual prompts that engage my thoughts and struggles. I photograph what I see, I remember what I experience. When there is an experience, there is a story to tell. I record thoughts in a journal and work out details of my process and colour theory before I put a mark on canvas. I graph my canvas and meticulously begin to draw my shapes. I fill in the spaces with codes that only I understand, basically I create a visual map to keep me organized when I am ready to apply paint. I project my image on a screen for inspiration. I begin by laying my canvas flat and applying a watery layer of paint, often laying down various colours referring to my inspiration photo often. When dry, I place my canvas on an easel and make more marks and begin to paint very slowly with one colour or area at a time. Slowly shapes and patterns emerge as I intuitively move away from referring to my photo. Each layer provides new life but simultaneously reveals small glimpses of what lies underneath. What ideas or projects have you been currently working on for the upcoming show? Have the events of the past year affected your art in any way? The pandemic coincided with a purposeful plan I had for 2020 and onward. I realize for many that the pandemic altered life dramatically but for me it assisted my goals of spending more time in my studio and stepping back from my work as a volunteer and advocate in the community. I am accustomed to creating bodies of work while working on one theme with great intent on purpose. In the past year I have given myself permission to honour my mark-making and see value in every work that I create. I’m actually surprised when I look back at my present body of work as I perceive changes in the way I paint. I recognize that what I experience, my contentment along with distress has translated more onto canvas this year than ever before. It is very apparent in my body of work. One will note conspicuous differences between the work as I communicated very strongly through colour and mark-making.
Often working intuitively, Hollingdrake's work explores her individual and acquired painting ideas with a focus on how colour and texture interact with visual space. Her work is often influenced by nature and plant life. On her latest works Hollingdrake states, "moving from my usual gestural abstract and into including plants, I had a breakthrough moment by holding the plant stem in one hand and my paint brush in the other. This helped me capture just the essence of the plant shapes for my interpretation without the formality of a still life. My desire is to keep them loose and painterly and all about colour."
ABOUT THE SHOW
This series of paintings celebrate the seed of creativity. A seed remains intact and stagnant until there is someone to plant and nurture it. These paintings reflect this process, recognizing that nothing can be realized without forethought and action. Like this theoretical seed, an idea also needs energy to propel it forward. There will always be missteps and readjustments, frustration and joy; with time and experience, you learn to trust in the process. Eventually, with gentle nudges and a willingness to keep going, something will emerge. You can take a breath and give thanks to that tiniest of seed."
She uses the ancient technique of encaustic to create her paintings and uses heat as a primary element in her process to control beeswax, resin and pigment. On the subject matter of her work, she describes that "My rural surroundings find themselves in my paintings, whether it is a meadow, bird sitting in a tree or some of the farm animals."
ABOUT THE SHOW
This series of paintings celebrate the seed of creativity. A seed remains intact and stagnant until there is someone to plant and nurture it. These paintings reflect this process, recognizing that nothing can be realized without forethought and action. Like this theoretical seed, an idea also needs energy to propel it forward. There will always be missteps and readjustments, frustration and joy; with time and experience, you learn to trust in the process. Eventually, with gentle nudges and a willingness to keep going, something will emerge. You can take a breath and give thanks to that tiniest of seed.
About the Planting Seeds exhibition Sharon states, "the show is about seeds and that is quite a recurring theme in my work. The first mark is a seed, our thoughts, movements and actions are seeds. Then what comes next is a result of that first mark. I hope these paintings plant seeds in the viewers imagination too. Perhaps they will be seeds to help them recall an experience or a dream that touched them."  ABOUT THE SHOW
This series of paintings celebrate the seed of creativity. A seed remains intact and stagnant until there is someone to plant and nurture it. These paintings reflect this process, recognizing that nothing can be realized without forethought and action. Like this theoretical seed, an idea also needs energy to propel it forward. There will always be missteps and readjustments, frustration and joy; with time and experience, you learn to trust in the process. Eventually, with gentle nudges and a willingness to keep going, something will emerge. You can take a breath and give thanks to that tiniest of seed." A HISTORY OF BLACKFRIARS MILL (1833 – 1912) The flour mill depicted in this painting was the second mill at this location – Ridout Street south of the Blackfriars Bridge. The first was a small two-storey affair built by Thomas Park in 1833. Park sold it to Dennis O’Brien a year later. A 5’ dam spanned the river south of the bridge, diverting the water down a mill race. The path of this diversion is now marked with a low wooden wall at the bottom of the walking path at the north end of Harris Park.  “LANDMARK”, oil on canvas, 36” x 72”, Kevin Bice In 1871, the mill was managed by George Phillips who enlarged it to 6 ½ storeys. The mill was becoming a major business in the city, producing 160 barrels of flour a day. In 1877, Joseph Saunby purchased the mill from Phillips and modernized the operation by changing to rolling mills from the old-fashioned stone-ground method. This enabled the mill to produce up to 300 barrels a day of patented “Ruby” and “Tecumseh” flour. With technological advancements in the milling industry, Saunby closed his mill and the building was demolished in 1912. Ridout Street was being expanded to accommodate more building and so tons of earth was brought in to extend the hill out into the river flats below. As a result, the only remaining part of the mill, the two-storey stone foundation, was buried under the earth fill. Today, the only traces of what was a major part of London’s development as a city are the reconstructed mill race and a number of white posts with small metal models of the mill building on top. These markers are found at the entrance and exit of the old mill race along the riverbank and clustered at the bottom of Ridout Hill where the mill wheel once turned.
The painting “Landmark” is meant not only to commemorate a disappeared part of London’s history but to remind the viewer to pay attention to those subtle and sometimes invisible reminders of the city’s past. The banks of the Thames were home to much of London’s early history – the original Carling Brewery at Ann Street, the London Soap Factory (foot of Clarence and South Streets), the site of the Victoria Boat Disaster (near Greenway Park) and the formerly world-famous Sulphur Springs Spa at the Forks.
As far back as she can remember, Bonnie Parkinson was drawing every day. She doesn’t recall the decision to pursue art; it was simply always there and always something she was called to. When she began her studies at Beal in 1955 she was full of excitement about the possibility of a career in art. For several years, Bonnie worked as a fashion artist both at the London Free Press and T. Eaton Co. She enjoyed the work but says she always felt a calling to find more time to paint. When Bonnie finally left the commercial art world and began painting full-time, she describes herself as bursting with ideas that had been pent up over the years. Bonnie embraced the simplicity of painting on plywood over canvas, a unique approach that set her paintings apart. Using layers of shaped plywood, she allows certain areas of her paintings to break out of the square mold.
A painter for over 50 years, Kevin Bice follows in the artistic legacy of his father; artist, writer, illustrator, and gallery director Clare Bice. Growing up immersed in the arts and brushing shoulders with prominent artists including A. Y. Jackson, it seems a natural conclusion that Kevin would end up in the visual and theatre arts himself.
Bice takes inspiration from historical artists working in a range of mediums and styles as well as from his experiences as an art instructor. Bice’s career as an educator began in Sault Ste. Marie where he was asked to begin an art department. Returning to London in 1976, he was asked to do the same at London Central Secondary School. Over his career, Bice taught at five London high schools and says that the process of fostering creativity in his students was integral to his own artistic development.
Kevin Bice’s work can be found in collections at the McIntosh Gallery at Western University and in corporate and private collections throughout Canada, the US and Europe. Bice and textile artist Lorraine Roy formed the London Artists’ Studio Tour and has participated in it for over 25 years. He was one of 19 artists who participated in The River Project in 2008.
Bonnie and Kevin’s exhibition opens on February 16th at Westland Gallery, and continues until March 6th. Andrew Sookrah Over his experience of the unprecedented times that the pandemic has presented, Andrew Sookrah has had to learn to find ways to embrace the mandatory and necessary isolation, and the effect of this towards his practice. This has involved changing the way in which Sookrah both thinks about and executes his work, and analyzing the role of the external factors that inform it. On these changes, Sookrah describes that “time seemed to slow down, and with it, my approach to my art; my entire being, my thought process, my brushstrokes seem to slow down too, to match time… I have found that my work has changed ever so slightly as a result of this calmer state of existence…” Quieting the passionate social commentary often found within his work, Sookrah has focused on landscapes of past expeditions, allowing time for past monologues to quietly grow to bear fruit in the future. Although his work presents a newfound sense of calm and freedom through his imagery, Sookrah’s work is informed by his study of the powerful influence of unquestioning belief over human decisions; sometimes followed by disastrous results.
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