In these times of wariness and uncertainty comes a local art exhibition to help lift our spirits. JOY: For the Joy of It is on at Gibsons Public Art Gallery (GPAG) until Aug. 9. It’s a show with freshness and vitality that lives up to its title and theme, which the artists have described thusly: “We have hope that at the core, whether quiet or radiant, life and every expression of it, is joyful; and during these COVID times staying in touch with our positive energies is imperative!”
The exhibition has been curated by renowned Gibsons painter Greta Guzek, who said in an interview that the inspiration for the show came to her about 18 months ago after a tai chi class in Roberts Creek. Through a window during the class, she and others saw a bear “just hanging out” in the fork of a maple tree. “He was so relaxed. He was just so curious. We stood there watching him for, like, 15 minutes.” She said she went home, resonating with the innocence and joy of the encounter. “It wouldn’t go away,” she said. “The whole concept of the show started with that bear.”
Guzek enlisted the help of Sunshine Coast artists Josefa Fritz Barham, Jen Drysdale, and Motoko, and Guzek’s Vancouver-based daughter, Kirsten Guzek. Each of them has brought verve and originality, demonstrated in dozens of works expressing joy in a variety of forms – serene, intense and offbeat, and many using aspects of nature as a subject.
Fritz Barham loves painting water in detail. “I’m intrigued when the sun bounces off the surface and the light filters through the water,” she said in a statement. “It’s like the light itself becomes liquid.” That affection is beautifully evident in her work here, like the large oil on canvas, Sundance.
Jen Drysdale has brought a few multi-piece works, including the joyously madcap Installation #3, made up of 11 colourful gelliprint-monoprints in multiple shapes mounted collage-like on black backgrounds.
Garden Bay’s Motoko has offered up a set of works, each a formidable 48 by 60 inches, on the theme of the seasons, Joy of Spring, Joy of Summer, Joy of Autumn, and Joy of Winter. Motoko’s abstract works always have an intensity of colour, and that’s especially so in these boldly brushed creations.
An impressive ceiling-to-floor mobile, entitled Balanced, by graphic designer Kirsten Guzek has been mounted in the centre of GPAG’s main room and will prompt a lot of smiles. Its large, pastel-shaded, tissue-paper leaves, teetering symmetrically on wire “twigs,” twist with just a breath of air.
Guzek the elder has contributed several pieces to the show, some, like Birdsong and Circadian Rhythm, are what you might call “classic Guzek,” floridly coloured, generously contoured acrylic works of modern impressionism, prominently featuring forested nature. There is also an innovative, mixed-media work you might not at first guess is by her. Lightness of Being depicts a flurry of pale blue, green, yellow and orange butterflies, literally flying out of the edges of the painting and up onto the gallery wall in the form of cardboard butterfly figures.
Guzek has also included a series of 16 of her own nature-themed monoprints, each accompanied by a form of haiku poetry, and four of which include images of, naturally, a bear.
This group of artists intended to create an uplifting and energizing exhibition. Done and done. As Guzek noted with a smile, “Somebody can walk in the door and actually feel good when they walk out.”
