Fall’s arrival brings a colourful array of new exhibits to local galleries.
At Avenue Gallery, today (Friday, Oct. 9) is your last chance to have explore Coastal Inspirations, a group show featuring new paintings by a variety of gallery artists, including Brent Lynch, Susie Cipolla, Ron Parker, Blu Smith and Catherine Moffat.
Also continuing through Oct. 14 is a show of dynamic, painted glass coffee tables by Gordon Scott that beautifully balance function and beauty.
Coming up at Avenue Gallery is Fractured, Oct. 22 to 29, exploring semi- and non-representational relationships of structure as created by our gallery painters, including Corre Alice, Susie Cipolla, Patty Ripley, Joan Skeet, Blu Smith, and Dawn Stofer. The opening reception with artists is from 6 to 8 p.m. Oct. 22.
At Oak Bay Avenue’s Gage Gallery, Intersections brings together three artists who explore the contemporary experience of everyday life.
From Anna Curtin comes landscape paintings that explore “moments of essence in a technology-driven world” in which “laser burns from GPS traces of walks combined with chance use of materials suggest a new pictorial space reflecting a post-conceptual experience of place,” organizers say.
Joining Curtin will be work by Samantha Dickie, whose sculptures “explore the restless space between stillness and movement,” and Carole Thompson, whose abstraction-based paintings interconnect colour theory, geometric forms and ambiguous pictorial space. “Within a multiple point perspective, and informed by nature, the cosmos and metaphysics, the work explores contemporary dichotomies. Inside a dialogue of high key colour, contrasts of order/chaos, stillness/movement and connection/separation can simultaneously and exuberantly coexist.”
In nearby Cadboro Bay, Goward House hosts its Art Show and Sale by the Federation of Canadian Artists, Oct. 30 to Nov. 25. Join the artists for a reception on Sunday, Nov. 1 from 2 to 4 p.m.
The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria is going bananas with its major fall exhibition, Anna Banana: 45 Years of Fooling Around with A. Banana.
The exhibit, running through the new year, spans Banana’s long and accomplished career, including a number of current projects. The exhibition is accompanied by a full-colour publication of Banana’s work – the first to document the full expanse of the Victoria-born artist’s remarkable career.
Anna Banana, then Anne Lee Long, was a mother, wife, textile artist and teacher in Victoria and Vancouver during the 1960s. Her unquenchable desire to explore art and challenge existing ideals led her to declare herself Victoria’s Town Fool in 1971 and organize a variety of events aimed at engaging the public in creative endeavours.
“Banana’s participatory initiatives were amongst the most avant-garde art being practiced in Victoria,” says Michelle Jacques, chief curator of the AGGV. “Victoria wasn’t the easiest place in which to go against the grain, so in 1974, she moved to San Francisco where she found a community of like-minded artists and her work flourished.”
Banana returned to Canada in the early 1980s and has participated for more than four decades in mail-art exchanges, performance art, network exhibitions and projects, writing and publishing. She now lives in Roberts Creek, on the Sunshine Coast.
A series of Mail Art Workshops at the gallery accompany the exhibit. Workshop admission is free, but due to limited space registration required – for details visit aggv.ca
Head to West End Gallery on Broad Street through Oct. 15 to enjoy colourful paintings by Rod Charlesworth, whose childhood fascination with drawing and painting has grown into a unique and primarily self-taught style influenced early on by the surrealist movement and later the Impressionist school.
His work, whether bold landscapes or whimsical images of children at play, is now collected world-wide.
Coming next to West End is a one-of-a-kind joint exhibit featuring Dulce Alba Lindeza and Blythe Scott, opening Oct. 24 and continuing to Nov. 5.
From Lindeza comes an exclusive new collection of Haute Couture .950 Wearable Sculpture, while Scott’s new collection of paintings comes together in her first exhibition based entirely on her Victoria landscapes. “An ode to Victoria, this collection is a celebration of the wonderful neighbourhoods we call home,” the gallery says.
Join the gallery for the opening Saturday, Oct. 24 with artists in attendance from 1 to 4 p.m.
At the University of Victoria’s Legacy Maltwood space, at the Mearns Centre – McPherson Library, Celebrating W.B. Yeats at 150 explores Yeats’ work as a poet and playwright with artwork, rare books, and printed ephemera.