Abandoning Paradise
Glenn Clark & Peter Corbett
March 6 – April 18
Main Gallery
Clark and Corbett bring us landscape painting in the plein air tradition of documenting wild areas – in this case, the area proposed for the Northern Gateway Pipeline Project. These small 8” x 10” paintings illustrate the sheer beauty of the landscape and represent in their skillful depiction what the country risks to lose if the pipeline is created and a disaster occurs.
Virtually There
Andreas Rutkauskas
March 6 – April 18
Discovery Gallery
Before traveling to photograph the Rocky Mountains, Andreas went on virtual “trips” of the Rockies. Using topographical maps and thousands of GPS coordinates fed into Google Earth, Andreas created virtual photos of the area. This exhibition compares his virtual simulations in a variety of media with his photographs taken from the same vantage point with a large format camera.
32nd Annual Members’ Show
April 24 – June 6
Main Gallery
Celebrating a 32 year tradition, this collaborative exhibition featured more than 60 artists. Co-hosted by the Campbell River Art Gallery and the Campbell River Arts Council, this exhibition showcased the diversity and quality of regional art-making practices.
Award recipients:
Awards of Excellence: Pavel Barta – Walking and Ruth MacLaurin – Earth Without Borders
Awards of Merit: Janis Guthy – Hard at Work, Christina Munck – Truchas, New Mexico, Martina Kowalchuk – Extinction Fish, Luise Grav – Meanwhile, Back at the Barn, Perrin Sparks – Mathilde’s Prose, and Judy Hilgemann – The Painted Piano
Honourable Mentions: Marcy Prior – Bewicks Wren, Kathryn Botsford – Secrets Within, Kerry Kowalchuk – Natural edge poplar bowl, Tina Johansen – Untitled, Carol Seeley – First Passage, and Jeff Hartbower – Chemo
Jurors: Madeleine Wood (visual artist) and Angela Somerset (CVAG curator)
Come Back to Bed
Madeleine Wood
June 12 – July 25
Main Gallery
Fanny Bay artist Madeleine Wood’s exhibition was comprised of two bodies of work: large scale realist paintings of unmade beds and figural works showcasing details of the human form. Beautiful in color and technically excellent in execution these paintings captured the light and shadow that are at play in the meeting of bodies and beds. Through the stories suggested by folds and creases of sheets or by the turn of a shoulder or a clenched hand, the viewing audience was allowed into the private space of the bedroom. According to Wood, “these paintings are my efforts to bring my art closer to life, to ask us to consider part of what makes us human, and to consider the beauty in the common place…”.
Vestiges
Bob McLeod
July 31 – September 12
Vestiges was an exhibition of multi-media sculptures, featuring blown glass, salvaged metal hardware and parts. Inspired by cast-offs found along the water and in the trash, McLeod transformed man-made and abandoned pieces into sculpture by combining blown glass throughout the forms. The juxtaposition of the volatile and fragile glass with the metal parts that seem indestructible creates an aesthetic tension in each work.
Lament of the Butterflies
Edith Krause and Doris Auxier
July 31 – September 12
Lament of the Butterflies featured two bodies of work: Mausoleum: Red List Lament, an installation by Auxier that consists of player piano scrolls suspended from the ceiling with fourteen paintings of red list plants amidst them and The Butterfly Effect by Krause, a series of multi-media works layering screen-printed maps, invasive plant species and digital photographs of butterfly wings. These beautiful and disturbing images depict the fragility of our natural environment.The exhibition is further intensified by a soundscape by Jesse Krause.
Dreaming of the Earth
Donna Naven and Lisa Gibbons
September 18 – October 31
Dreaming the Earth was a collaborative exhibition influenced by the wild and natural world. Lisa Gibbons creates mixed media paintings; Donna Naven works in stone and both artists’ work reflect the inspiration they find in the living earth. Gibbons’s paintings are representational images of nature with a subtle nuance of the metaphysical. Naven is a primarily self-taught stone sculptor. Originally inspired by images in books of Neolithic stone goddess figures, Naven aims to breathe new life and narrative into these natural forms.
Passages & Transformations
John Schevers
September 18 – October 31
Passages and Transformations was a symbolic visual and experiential narrative of the immutable laws of nature: the cycle of life and the interconnectedness of all things. As a multi-media artist, Schevers pushes the boundaries of his materials and experimenting to add greater texture and depth to his layered 2D compositions. The show included a multi-media installation piece requiring audience participation to complete. Working with self-made motifs such as gates, vessels, and the universal mother, the exhibit as a whole represented a complete cycle – life, death, and rebirth.
Many Things Placed Here + There a Place Capable of Sheltering Many Things Placed Here + There
Sybil Andrews, David Birnie, Richard Calver, Danny Coon, Lyn Farquharson, George Littlechild, James Lindsay, Heather Thomas, David Kilmartin
October 17 – November 13
A selection from the Campbell River Art Gallery permanent collection, displayed at the Tidemark Theatre.
Pavel Barta
October 22, 2014 – January 15 2015
Pavel recently moved to Campbell River where he has an artist studio and gallery located along the Old Island Highway. His work ranges from large outdoor sculptures to small delicate works. Pavel’s sculptures are displayed in several galleries in British Columbia and are in private collections across Canada, in Europe, USA, New Zealand, and Australia.