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One Week Left: VAL NELSON at VISUALSPACE GALLERY

There’s just one week left to view my solo exhibition at Visualspace Gallery in Vancouver. If you haven’t yet been able to view the show, I hope you can make it! The show closes Saturday, May 7.

I’m so grateful that there was a great turnout at my opening and also my artist talk. So many friendly and enthusiastic friends, art lovers, and former students. Thank you so much for coming!

A sneakpeek virtual tour of the show can be viewed on the gallery’s Instagram page, and the entire collection can be viewed here. A video of my talk is being edited and we will be able to share it with you soon.

Never say never, but these may be the last historic interiors I paint, as new things are percolating in my studio now. 

Visualspace Gallery

3352 Dunbar Street at 17th Ave

Vancouver, BC

604-559-0576

Gallery hours: Tues to Sat, noon to 5 pm

Gallery director: Yukiko Onley

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Haptic Splendour

For the past 15 years, I’ve painted opulent European 18th and 19th century interiors. Designed as theatrical displays of status and power by wealthy aristocrats and bourgeoisie, these formerly private sites are now museums, providing entertainment and pleasure for touristic consumption, while also opening up a space for philosophical contemplation.

Although I use photography as a structural device through which I enter the painting process, with each piece I always seem to arrive at a point of crisis where I need to break free from the tyranny of the image. Through partly destroying the image I discover fresh solutions to painterly problems I set for myself.

Throughout my childhood and into my mid-twenties, I was a ballet dancer. That intense training of spatial awareness and interpretive questioning is still deeply stamped in my DNA. A painting to me is a kind of choreography; there’s a haptic dance that takes place from my optical experience of an image, through to the way my nervous system signals to my body how to translate and record it. As painter/dancer I tease out meaning through working and reworking, coming up to speed as I gain understanding, and making the last strikes with absolute commitment.

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Talking objects

Below are images of a work shown in progress through to completion, of the Porcelain Dining Room in the Chateau de Versailles. It’s a commission I’ve enjoyed making for a private home near Toronto.  The wide panoramic format was pieced together from individual photographs I took from a trip in France a number of years ago. I remember going through the chateau twice, the second pass offered a satisfying, golden afternoon light. The composition reminds me of the forced perspective one observes on the virtual tours of museum websites.

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Porcelainpanorama in progress
Day 3, Porcelain Panorama (working title), 36 x 72 inches, oil on canvas

Blocking in always begins with big brushes, to locate everything and establish colour family and main values. The next step in the painting is to use smaller brushes and go in for specifics of detail, sharpening edges and creating stronger focal points. I want the viewer to feel immersed in the space, with lots to encourage the eye to keep meandering, discovering new subtleties and maybe even surprises. It’s important to me that a painting unfold for the viewer slowly, to withstand the test of time.

In the final session something happened that wasn’t planned. Here’s the finished piece with its new title, Mantlepiece with Talking Objects (Versailles).

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Mantelpiece with talking objects (Versailles), 36 x 72 inches, oil on canvas, 2016

Working with the warm colors of the parquet flooring, gilding, and marble, really helped energize the gray days of winter.

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January at Bau-Xi Gallery

GALLERY ARTISTS: Washed by Water

January 9-23, 2016
OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY JANUARY 9, 2-4PM
ARTISTS IN ATTENDANCE 

3045 Granville St, Vancouver, BC
604.733.7011 / info@bau-xi.com

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Atom Dance, 30 x 40 inches, oil on canvas, 2015

Bau-Xi Gallery is pleased to present WASHED by Water, a group exhibition centered on the theme of water.

“The water understands Civilization well” famously states Ralph Waldo Emerson in his seminal poem, Water about the independence, transcendence, and spiritual union of water and society in the nineteenth century. An essential life giving element that is as precious a commodity as it is a dangerous and volatile source of destruction, water has an ever more complicated relationship with civilization today. If once, society valued the element for hydration, ablution, regeneration and transportation, water has become an inexplicable source of power rife with political, financial and environmental contention. Never has society better understood the importance of water and simultaneously taken it for granted.

WASHED by Water will explore the metaphorical, environmental, material significance of water and bodies of water as they inform visual culture in the twenty-first century.  Artists will look at the different formations water takes and offer work that comments on their own unique relationship with the element. Special attention will be paid to depicting the aesthetic quality of the element – how to capture its various color, its fluidity and its ability to reflect light.

 
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Bau-Xi Gallery 50th Anniversary Group Exhibition

Bau–Xi Gallery will be celebrating its 50th Anniversary with special exhibitions running May 7-30, 2015 at both Bau–Xi Toronto and Bau–Xi Vancouver.

Opening Reception: Thursday, May 7, 7- 9pm*

*Due to space limitations, please RSVP here for the Opening Reception.
contact: 604-733-7011

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I’m excited to be showing new work at this upcoming exhibition, which will include historic Canadian art from the Huang family’s private collection including Jack Shadbolt, Gordon Smith, and Maxwell Bates, along with new work by current gallery artists.

If you have a story or picture you would like to share from your visits to the gallery, please email them. They would love to hear about it. It may be selected to be included on their website and/or in the exhibition.

The exhibition runs through May 30.

contact: 604-733-7011    info@bau-xi.com

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Canadian Conceptual Painter Makes Images of Domestic Cats

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Todd Lambeth, Noah, 12 x 14 inches, oil on canvas, 2012

Victoria painter Todd Lambeth was seriously injured in a cycling accident recently, and found himself housebound with limited movement as he convalesced. Cats at rest are the subject matter of the paintings that came out of that period.  The artists says, “These are not paintings of urban hustle; rather they are oases of meditative calm and reflection. The banal subject of the ubiquitous family cat is transformed into images that celebrate the humility and comfort of our private lives.”

Watch an excellent video interview of Lambeth talking about his project, by filmmaker Michael Cox.

Lambeth’s exhibition “Oh! You Pretty Things” is on view at Deluge Gallery in Victoria to June 15, 2013