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Kids and crows inform exhibit’s nature theme

Gibsons Public Art Gallery
crows
Langdale artist Andrea Pratt with three of her crow-themed paintings: May I Take a Message, I’ll Get It, and It’s For You.

Images of nature dominate the new, two-artist exhibition at Gibsons Public Art Gallery (GPAG), with two very different takes on the theme. 

Jennifer Ferries of Prince George is showing a collection in the main gallery that she’s calling Quiet Co-existence, consisting of 18 larger works in oils, and all featuring landscapes calmly populated by animals and children. “This is an idea I’ve been working on since 2013,” Ferries told Coast Reporter during the Sept. 14 reception. “I like the scale of children.” 

Ferries is on about more than bucolic scenery. “The images of children in the paintings indicate a portal into that world of the unseen,” GPAG manager Michael Aze added in his description of the artist’s work. “We all share this plane where so much lies beyond our awareness.” 

Some of the animals in Ferries’s collection happen to be crows, which is the specific focus of the series called Corvidae, by Langdale’s Andrea Pratt. Her 16 smaller works in oils, acrylic and watercolours occupy the Eve Smart Gallery section of GPAG. The organizers were not aware of the two artists’ bird connection when planning the exhibition. “It’s just one of those happy accidents that sometimes happen in the scheduling,” said gallery board president Stewart Stinson. 

One of the smaller series in Pratt’s varied and warmly humorous exhibit feature crows interacting with 1960s-era telephones. 

“Crows are such clever communicators among themselves. Also, I like vintage things. So, I thought I’d do a series with old rotary phones,” Pratt said. “As I started doing them, I wondered what I was going to do for the titles, and I remembered that in the old days we used to say things like, ‘May I take a message,’ ‘I’ll get it,’ and, ‘It’s for you.’ All of which ended up as titles of the three small oils. 

More vintage objects – a wringer-washer, transistor radio and Volkswagen mini-van – feature with the black birds in three other pieces. “They are things people would try to acquire at an earlier time, and in this case the crows are acquiring them instead,” she explained. 

Why crows? “They’re fascinating,” said Pratt, who added that she’s been using the clever and resourceful birds as subjects off an on for the past ten years. “I have my own special crow that comes and hangs out with me.” 

Quiet Co-existence and Corvidae will be showing at GPAG until Oct. 6.