If you are yearning to be reminded of our latest long, hot summer, then look no further that the walls of the Foyer Gallery.
Linda Wagner presents “My Summer Sail,” recent oil paintings inspired by her many weeks as a passionate mariner breathing in the salacious salt air.
“I grew up on B.C.’s coast and am an avid sailor. We sail to places a lot of people never get to see. The many moods of the sea and the rugged coastline inspire me,” she says.
If you have ever had the chance to see Wagner paint in a live public setting, you’ll be awestruck at how quickly and prolificly she paints.
“I work from sketches and memory. This allows more freedom in my interpretation of scene than working from photographs. I will paint as long as I am able and I still have the passion for it. I have always enjoyed the journey,” she reveals.
Wagner uses bright colours and high contrast to manipulate the viewer’s eye, with many shades of West Coast greys to rest upon. Observation and often exaggeration of the elements add excitement to her work.
“I want to give the viewer the feeling of the wind. And to hear the crash of the waves or evoke the sense of peacefulness, when things are calm, to feel the solitude of the wilderness,” she explains.
Wagner has been a professional artist for nearly 30 years, working in both oils and watercolours. In 2006 her show “Driven to Abstraction” at the Foyer Gallery led to an eclectic series of abstract and semi-abstract paintings. With this show she returns to her earlier passion of landscapes and seascapes.
Contact her at 604-898-4388 or [email protected]
Melding metal
Fine art scrap metal might be considered an oxymoron, but to Fran Solar it’s her unique creative expression in colourful woven sculptures and wall hangings. Solar, a self-proclaimed scrap yard junkie, exhibits her latest collection, “Irrational Exuberance,” which uses multiple colours, textures and unexpected materials.
Solar gets excited about being given “wonderful junk,” as she calls it.
“A friend recently arrived with a huge quantity of ½-inch wide copper foil strips, scrap leftover from some unknown industrial process. I’ve been using these strips to play with bias plaiting, a braiding technique that’s found worldwide for weaving baskets,” she says.
An assortment of these 3D geometric and circular woven ‘doodles’ are part of this current display.
The biggest evolution of Solar’s art came about 20 years ago when she switched from natural fibres to threading her two looms with copper wire. This lead to weaving sculptural pieces with various metals, merging stranded wire, copper strips and other materials into designs with lots of colour and texture.
Instead of dying wool, Solar now uses simple patinas to color the bare copper or purchases copper wire in a variety of wonderful colours.
Solar admits the gift of ‘scrap’ or the ‘discovery of a new material’ can always get the wheels turning and that her creative process is slightly abstract and mostly tactile.
“Improvisation, having a vague idea… then working it out by hand and actually making something. I’ll sometimes sketch, but preplanning an idea completely on paper doesn’t work for me. I need to handle and shape the material, then make arrangements of the woven elements,” she says.
Solar won a 2014 Niche Award, celebrating excellence and innovation in American and Canadian fine craft, and she is currently a finalist for 2015.
For more information contact: 604-898-4377 or visit www.francessolar.com.
