About the Exhibit
With pleasure, the gallery is curating a hyper-local group show featuring Tofino-based artists in painting, sculpture & photography. The subjects are diverse, meeting at a place where independent ideas encounter and communicate with each other.
Curiosity: Matt Dyer paints to explore, creating art to dissect and stay curious. He takes inspiration from the world as a dynamic whole—people, relationships, communities, time, environment and the awkward and non-glorious ways in which people struggle. Dyer feels the most telling parts of life are found in the ordinary and the underwhelming. He believes this is where nature is happiest and where people are at their most honest, awkward and vulnerable selves. As a painter, he starts from this point, using color, layers, space and line to press up against the mundane.
Ecology: Sarah Platenius’s work echoes ecological conversations found in nature—compositions based on presence and process. Her artwork is approached using repurposed wood upon which found materials are used to add texture and patterns. Platenius’s process is achieved by applying layers of paint and media, using cross hatching, textures and circles that explore the cyclical nature of things, complexities and paradoxes. Her visual and literary art traverses the wild; it is a collection of field notes, tributes, and signposts interpreting weather patterns of heart, politics, religion, and geography. Boldly layered, Platenius’s paintings weave stories of the personal and collective through collage, texture and colour, palettes that suggest a certain timelessness.
Fertility: The small, ancient Roman city of Aphrodisias—and the temple of Aphrodite—are the investigative inspiration behind sculptor Jim Schwartz’ Cult Object series. He initially became interested in the archeological aspect of Aphrodisias and then in the cult of Aphrodite, specifically the stone objects from early Neolithic times that would have been used in the performance of fertility and sacrificial rituals. For Schwartz, it became a burning desire to visit Aphrodisias in search of the actual cult objects he imagined must have been there. Visiting the temple in 2003, he touched the stones to absorb their energy. The cult objects were gone, so Schwartz began to create his own under the theme of “Cult Objects”. Number 1 was a male object; Number 2 a female object; Number 3 was a hermaphroditic object; and, Number 4 is for the fertility of the universe.
Symmetry: Lara Palmer’s new limited-edition photography series ‘Mirrors’ offers an investigation in symmetry. As one of Canada’s top Art Directors in the Ad & Design industry for the past 35 years, her new collection is inspired by living amidst the majestic nature of Tofino. Palmer’s photography captures a magnificent mirror effect when a thin layer of water is left on the beach at low tide, reflecting epic skies onto the hard-packed sand, capturing the stunning symmetry of this natural phenomenon in camera, no photoshop duplication. Rotating the images so that the horizon line becomes a vertical centreline is the final effect that promotes what she calls ‘prolonged gazing’.
