Toby Jaxon’s Tulip Daydream painting won the VISUALS People’s Choice Award, as visitors of the two-day Art at the Market group exhibition voted for their favourite among 60 pieces of art created by 14 local artists. Jaxon’s Tulip Daydream drew 28 of the 212 votes, twice as many as the runner-up vase by Jan Phelan.
Each artist, all Squamish Valley Artists Society members, received at least three votes, reflecting the varied taste of visitors and the high quality of art on display.
Tulip Daydream is painted in Jaxon’s signature style of textural swirls and large-scale isolated strokes which the Squamish resident started to develop about four years ago.
“It is an element that I always try to incorporate. You see these thicker strokes – I try to build up paint so that it becomes three-dimensional. The texture adds more depth and interest,” says Jaxon who has been a life-long artist.
She created Tulip Daydream this spring, making a clear break from the snowscapes she had been working on during this past colder-than-usual Squamish winter. “I totally draw from the seasons. In the wintertime I want to paint winter scenes, in the summertime I want to paint summer scenes,” Jaxon says.
With a new-found focus on florals, she has changed one key ingredient of her paintings. “I’ve only just this spring started playing with different colours of underpaintings. I always try to paint leaving that background colour popping through and lime-green used to be my colour choice.
“But when I switched to florals I realized that I couldn’t underpaint in green because I wouldn't have that complementary play of adjacent vibrating colours,” she says. Tulip Daydream has a crimson and blue background that sets off the other colours in the painting.
“I almost always have white and black in my paintings because I really like the high contrast. My black is never black, it is always a complex mix of dark browns and blues and maybe a bit of black.”
Jaxon often uses photographs to inspire her work. “I’ll start with a photo image and crop it to get my best composition. Then I manipulate it, maybe to adjust the relationships between the objects. Once I have my outline of the subject, I’ll change colours and shapes and add swirls. But I do like to have something visual as a starting point. Then I’ll sketch the general shapes onto the canvas, and start working from there. I really like the macro views and I love playing with depth, light and shadow.”
Jaxon stresses the importance of painting continually. “My strokes are deliberate, although I am trying to force myself to paint faster because the quickness in the stroke has a fluid expressive feel.”
VISUALS members Joanna Schwarz and Greg Wint, both photographers, donated beautiful artwork, won in a draw among People’s Choice voters by Neil Ross and Barbara Rudkin respectively.
Visitors to the next Art at the Market, held Aug. 1, can vote again for their favourite piece and win a watercolour painting by Gunter Wissmeyer.
