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Elsa Chesnel has always been seduced by charcoal, by the black mess engulfing her as the drawings emerge. With charcoal as her preferred medium, Elsa set out to express feelings through contrast.  The limitations of Chesnel’s medium of choice, however, pushed her to use acrylics to express herself in larger format, which in turn allowed for experimentation with colour.

When creating, Chesnel loses herself in shapes and volumes, then refines and discovers meaning through lines as she explores her own thoughts. The artist is as much a part of the process as a part of the final product. In many ways, Lines of Thoughts is Chesnel’s own version of Rorschach’s inkblots.

Suzanne Laird’s intention in this body of work is to shift perspective and consciousness from a place of pain and hurt to one of healing. That transformation is documented in a visual language created by the artist as she navigates the world in a state of acknowledgment, grievance, acceptance and in pursuit of happiness and beauty. Her work denotes tones of tension between fragility, vulnerability and strength, both in forms of subject matter and in the physicality of the materials. Explored through the lens of a feminist perspective, she uses art as a platform for sharing fragmented narratives of trauma and its transformative aftermath. We are capable of shifting narratives, of transforming pain into wisdom. She is a mixed media artist who is guided by curiosity, intuition and introspection. She primarily uses textiles and plaster and consistently experiments with these materials. Her artwork ranges from two-dimensional pieces referencing paintings to three dimensional sculptures.

In 2002, Suzanne Laird earned her BFA in Visual Arts from the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, focusing on painting, sculpture, drawing, and media arts. In 2009, Laird graduated with a Bachelor of Education from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC. She has exhibited her work in Saskatoon and around Metro Vancouver, and continues to maintain her studio practice locally. 

Lex Ireton’s glass work is heavily process oriented, where she explores her love of connecting with the material hands on. This invites constant learning of new techniques and embracing, even enhancing the phenomenon that occur when dealing with glass. Many of Ireton’s ideas evolve through working in the hot shop; always starting with a plan but reacting to the material step by step, knowing each moment has the potential to be a finished object. 

Ireton draws inspiration from patterns occurring in the natural world. Ornamentation is laid out or carved into the glass in a very controlled manner. She can then encourage outside forces to affect the materials intrinsic qualities to create spontaneous effects on the pattern, manipulating a recognizable pattern to be as representational or abstract as she wants. Markings become fluid, stretching and moving in different ways depending on the softness of each colour, the addition of air and amount of heat. 

Ireton explores the relationship between individual forms and how they interact with one another to create a united end product. By using repetition in pattern, texture, or components that make up a final piece, Ireton focuses on the connections created and how they inform the work as a whole. Working in multiples allows the finished version to be easily manipulated by the artist and the viewer, incorporating an element of play and the ability for the work to continue to change. Ireton also enjoys using the qualities of two different materials to interact with one another so they create either an opposing or reinforcing visual relationship. Relationships that form from the communication of different elements anthropomorphize the objects and bring in a social element. 

Lex Ireton was born in the Kootenays and raised in New Westminster. Attending Capilano University from 2008-2011 she dabbled in printmaking, ceramics, painting, drawing and sculpture. After moving to Calgary in 2011 to study at ACAD she discovered glass and that has been the primary material ever since. Graduating with a BFA in 2014 Lex continues to travel back and forth across Canada working as a studio assistant while continuing to build her own body of work.

Art, in its many forms, challenges us to think about our world in new ways, sometimes engaging, sometimes enraging. These days it feels as if making art is survival, poring over slabs of wood while listening to what is and what should never be on the TV and radio. It worries but inspires, so it is all a double edged sword. As much positive energy that can be mustered is put into each piece, regardless of subject matter. Tony Durke’s goal is to spread some beauty around the world and at the same time be provocative, using only shapes, colour, and texture to describe a certain feeling or event. 

The wood used in Tony Durke’s art is mostly recycled or up-cycled, sourced from telephone poles, scraps from cut blocks, discarded sets from the film industry, and the lumber yard. His preference is to repurpose wood and paint that has already completed a phase of its life. Durke assembles his compositions using an Olfa blade and sandpaper, and applies pastels, spray paint, pens, oil, and acrylics. Durke works to maintain the integrity of the raw wood, celebrating its past and present forms.

Realpolitik– “ The study of the forces that shape, maintain and alter the state is the basis of all political insight and leads to the understanding that the law of power governs the world of states just as the law of gravity governs the physical world.”

Tony Durke was born in Victoria BC in 1973, and grew up in Campbell River. In high school, Durke began commercial fishing, and then entered the forest industry. He later attended Canadian College in Victoria to study film arts. Duke has been working in film for 18 years, now specializing in art direction, which is a profession that involves colour, texture, and the entire design of the film. In his studio practice, Durke’s medium of choice is oil and mixed media on carved wood, and has explored this style of working for about 10 years. Durke now lives and works in New Westminster.

The New Westminster 2018 Graduating Students have worked hard to bring together their best work for our FIRST Grad Show. The show includes all manner of creation: ink drawing, painting, sculpture, and photography. These artists are excited to launch themselves into the big world and land in a way that honours their high school life. As you wander through the gallery of images and sculpture you will see yourself mirrored in their youth and you will proudly imagine the strength of our community’s future. Feel free to take selfies with your favourite image and artist on Grad Night, June 28, 2018.

The Gallery at Queen’s Park is pleased to present a pop-up exhibition by the Queen’s Park Parent Participation Preschool. This group exhibition will display artwork by the current students of QPPS, highlighting our city’s future artists and makers. Queen’s Park Parent Participation Preschool was established in 1965, and has since offered a quality and nurturing preschool program for three and four year old children, to families living in New Westminster and its surrounding communities. This exhibition is an example of a place where children and their parents are encouraged to learn together through play, in a caring environment that fosters a sense of community.

The striking beauty of landscapes and oceans has always fascinated fibre artist Diane Roy. Roy uses a variety of knots, bends, weaving and crochet to produce her marine formations. The mystical characters seen in the deep and shallow waters steer Roy’s practice and has deepened her concern for the fate of our oceans and the creatures that inhabit them. Her material exploration utilizes recycled materials to promote the idea of re-using in the process of art making, while raising awareness for our natural world. 

Born in Ontario, Diane Roy grew up in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Québec. In 1977, she received a D.E.C in Art and Literature from college in Rouyn, Québec.  In 1980, she graduated in Fine Art and Education from the University of Québec in Chicoutimi. She took part in an exhibition on tour across Canada in 1980. From 1982 to 1986, she lived in Edmonton, Alberta, where she began a production of fibre sculptures. She received a production grant from Alberta Culture in 1984. She has lived in Vancouver, British Columbia since 1986. From 1986 to 1990, she studied the medium of holography while pursuing her work in fibre art and education. She has represented Canada in an international show in Morocco, in 1989. She participated in International Textile exhibition in Japan (1994), France (1996) and Spain in (1998). In 2014, she has shown a first retrospective of her work dating from 1980-2014 in 2015, she achieved her first public art project in North Delta, B.C.

The Gallery at Queen’s Park is pleased to present Dennis Greer’s solo exhibition Sea-to-Sky. The expansiveness and quiet energy of coastal B.C. are strongly evident in the imagery and muted palette of Dennis Greer’s recent paintings. Greer has been experimenting with working on various surfaces including aluminum and wood as well as using cold wax and linseed oil with oil paint in an attempt to simulate the translucency of the rainy west coast atmosphere. The personalized style that Greer has developed attempts to translate and interpret nature through saturated layers of transparent glazes. Greer’s art is a transformative interpretation rather than a literal rendering with the intention of evoking the emotion, memory, and essence of the west coast landscape.

Dennis Greer received a BFA, majoring in painting, from the University of Alberta and a Graduate Diploma in illustration from Sheridon College of Art and Design in Oakville, Ontario. Upon graduating from the UofA he was immediately employed as an illustrator/graphic designer for the Edmonton Separate School Board where he illustrated various books and posters curriculum materials. He then went on to be an illustrator and museum display artist with the Government of Alberta, in the Historic Sites Dept. and after moving to British Columbia, was, for over fifteen years, the “Artistic Coordinator” for WorkSafe BC where he designed and illustrated various safety related manuals and posters. His teaching experience includes stints with the UofA and Grant MacEwan Community College in Edmonton as well as Vancouver Community College and Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver. He is currently teaching drawing and illustration at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, B.C. Greer’s home and studio is in the Commercial Drive community of Vancouver, British Columbia. He is currently working on paintings for a show in Hung Jo China in the fall of 2018. 

The Gallery at Queen’s Park is pleased to present Iris Mes-Low’s solo exhibition Eulogy on the Family Home. Iris Mes-Low’s series of paintings and computer manipulated giclées are based on houses in New Westminster. Addressing the affordability crisis in Metro Vancouver, Mes-Low explores the idea of what is a possibility for some is a pipe dream for many and a reality for few. Mes-Low’s subjects are represented in a whimsical manner that express the uniqueness of the houses in the area, and are placed in reverse and in a fantasy setting.

Iris Mes-Low is a New Westminster Artist born in The Netherlands with work in public and private collections in both Europe and North America. She works full-time in her studio at Braid St Studios in New Westminster. She has been painting and exhibiting her work for over 30 years.

The Gallery at Queen’s Park is pleased to present Manuel Axel Strain’s solo exhibition Mutations. Mutations is an on-going self reflective practise in which artist Manuel Axel Strain attempts to understand the way colonization has led to a contorted sense of identity. Through this investigation of self, Strain hopes to renegotiate the relationship to his First Nations identity. Strain intends to use his lived experience to inspire social and political change in the colonial state of Canada.

Manuel Axel Strain is an interdisciplinary artist of Coast Salish, Secwepemc, and Okanagan descent. Strain was raised in the suburban neighbourhood of Maple Ridge with little knowledge of what it meant to be a person of First Nations descent. This upbringing lead Strain to examine the construction of First Nations identities – in particular the internal conflicts that arise from imposed identity constructs.  He works with painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, and video installations. His practice confronts the legacies of colonization that have been left upon the identities of the First Nations people of Canada. Strain is mainly concerned with post-colonial notions of hybridity, assimilation, cultural appropriation, self determination and resistance. Through the appropriation of euro-centric art he simultaneously accepts these legacies and rejects them while subverting colonial perception of indigenous art. His purpose is to redefine his indigeneity and break the cycle of inaccurate generalizations. His goal is to move beyond the binary opposition of the colonizer and the colonized to establish new ontologies for the First Nations identity.

The Gallery at Queen’s Park presents Tajah Olson’s solo-exhibition, My Face My Canvas. Olson’s artistic practice is based in the embodiment of various constructed personas or animas, expressed visually through dressing and painting her own body. Olson physically re-enacts movements and feelings from memories and social observations, formulating her characters and painting process. The result of this mark-making through gesture creates the imagery and patterning seen on her body in her photographs. Through the use of escapism within her performances, Olson isolates herself and her subjects from place. She states, “I am a queen, a goddess, a warrior, I am a king, I am white, green, black, I am a spirit, a man, a child, a woman, I am a movement, I am feeling, I am a celebration and anything that I choose to be, even if it does not exist in this world.” Through this process, Olson transcends the physical and social constructs of identity, race, ethnicity and gender. With the aim of aesthetic appreciation of her constructed image, and detachment from the history and language carried within the colour of her skin, Olson addresses her experience as a racial and ethnic Other within western culture, and reflects on her identity and memories growing up in Malawi.

Fatima Tajah Olson was born and raised in Malawi (Southern Eastern Africa) and moved to Namibia when she was fourteen years old where she attended Windhoek International School. She left the country when she was seventeen and moved to Victoria, BC and finishing high school at Victoria High School. After Victoria High School, Olson attended Pacific Design Academy where she studied Fashion Design, receiving a Fashion Design Diploma. She moved to Vancouver in 2005 and studied at Emily Carr University, receiving a Bachelor in Fine Arts. After graduating, Olson returned to South Africa and back to Malawi where she spent time volunteering with AIDS orphans at a clinic, various orphanages, and a school in a village. Back in Vancouver, Olson teaches African Street Dance to children and adults. In 2011 she was featured on Canada’s Got Talent, and in 2014 she choreographed an African dance for the Kindness Rocks Concert that involved 60 high school students. Olson continues to extend her volunteer efforts at events that help the homeless, assisting in music therapy sessions at a senior home, and African event programs.

Both Dorothy Doherty and Frank Turco use intuition as a guiding force in their artistic practices. The physical formation of ephemeral inclinations places a degree of trust not just within the artists’ own abilities, but within their materials. This sense of openness towards their processes allows the inherent qualities of the materials to dictate certain developments in their work. These decisions stem from an honouring of materials that focuses on the integrity of form and surface. Doherty’s paintings explore the act of revealing the imperceptible layers in the creative process, whereas Turco’s ceramics are determined by the unique influence of the ash within the firing process of a wood-fired kiln. In allowing varying degrees of entropy and control to create their works, Doherty and Turco invite a possibility of results not otherwise attainable or predictable. The abstraction attained through these methods acts as a connecting force, bonding the apparent dichotomy between ceramics and painting.

Dorothy Doherty received her art education from Vancouver School of Art (currently Emily Carr University of Art & Design) and Capilano University. She holds an MA in History in Art (University of Victoria) and a PDP (Simon Fraser University). She is a life-long resident of British Columbia, Canada, spending the majority of her life in and around Vancouver, BC.

Frank Turco has continued his practice in ceramics for over twenty years. He served on the board of the Potters’ Guild of BC and the North West Ceramic Foundation, was of the Burnaby Potters’ Guild for several years, and currently is a member of the Fraser Valley Potters’ Guild. Influenced by movements in Japanese and English ceramics, and specializing in wood firing, Turco produces his work out of his own wood-fired kiln on Vancouver Island.

The “Royal City” has it all: new and old, modern innovation and rich historical heritage—endless inspiration for those who strive to capture their surroundings with camera in hand. But no two photographers see the aspects of a place in exactly the same way; subjects of interest and vantage points vary and are always strongly influenced by the individual perception and personality of each image maker.

The New Westminster Photography Club artists are pleased to share their various views of this city in its myriad guises—glimpses of both the iconic and lesser known places we call home—and are pleased to present This City, Our Way: New West through the Lens.

The New Westminster Photography Club was formed in 1948, when four or five camera-buffs got together to exchange information and discuss their work. Within a year, this small group had grown to become the New Westminster Colour Photography Club, with more than a dozen members. Though its numbers have waxed and waned, the core purpose of the club has remained steadfast: to foster the art form and appreciation of photography.

The NWPC is proud of its continuous, active role in the city of New Westminster, and its unwavering support of all aspects of photographic artistry for over 65 years. The NWPC is a member of CAPA (Canadian Association for Photographic Art), and participates annually in a number of print and digital competitions held throughout the Lower Mainland.

Either as a collective and/or as individual artists, the New Westminster Photography Club has exhibited work at a number of venues, including:

• Anvil Centre 
• New Westminster Public Library (Solo & Group Exhibits)
• ‘Art in the Atrium’ Gallery at the QCC Hub
• Fraser River Discovery Centre
• Kay Meek Centre in West Vancouver
• CityScape Community Art Space in North Vancouver

NWPC members have also had original photographic work published in the Georgia Straight, 24 Hrs, the Vancouver Sun and Canadian Camera, as well as other magazines, trade journals and periodicals.

More information can be found at: www.nwphoto.org 

The Gallery at Queen’s Park is pleased to present New Westminster artist Barbara Webb. Barbara Webb’s paintings are aesthetic translations of her environment. Exploring her emotional connections of daily life through abstract impressions of her surroundings, Webb focuses on the colours, shapes, textures, and concepts of the natural and man-made forms of Coastal British Columbia. Her empirical perspective is employed through her use of photography to document the mountains, skies, and waters of the west coast to provide references to produce her abstract renderings. Through her work, Webb aims to engage the viewers own evolving relationship to the local landscape.

Barbara Webb is a New Westminster artist working mainly in acrylic and mixed media. Her passion in art began with photography; she continues to find this provides inspiration for her artwork. Many of her works are abstract in design, merging texture, shape and colour to represent landscapes, nature or man-made structure. She has a Certificate in Fine Art Techniques from the Emily Carr University, Vancouver, BC.

http://www.artistbarbwebb.com