The Armstrong Spallumcheen Art Gallery holds its second art opening of the season with two exhibitions; one a retrospective by the late Jack and Betty Hamer; the other a show called Digital Composites by Spallumcheen-based photographer Michael Sturdy.
“It is shaping up to be a very interesting and exciting show,” said art gallery administrator Sherry MacFarlane. “Jack and Betty are gone now but their daughter, Gayl Hamer Findlay, is presenting the show in their honour.”
Entitled Jack and Betty Hamer: A Retrospective, 1940 to 1990, the exhibition features paintings by the married couple, who were both born in Yorkshire, England.
Jack graduated from the Halifax School of Art in England with a diploma in fine arts, textile design and colour and was later employed by his father, a dyer at a carpet manufacturer in the north of England.
He married Betty, who worked in a textile design studio, in 1939 and they soon immigrated to Canada, where Jack continued his career in the Brinton Carpet Company in Peterborough, Ont.
“He eventually became the head carpet designer at Brinton, where his commercial artwork included major contract carpet designs for clients including the CP Hotels in Western Canada and the Royal York in Toronto,” said Hamer Findlay. “At this time he began to pursue his passion for painting fine art, working in oils, watercolour and pastels.”
Jack became a founding member of the Peterborough Group of Painters and exhibited with Royal Canadian Academy and Ontario Society of Artists in annual juried shows.
Along with raising their children, Betty was a full-time painter and ballet teacher.
“Her medium was pen and ink as well as oils and tapestries,” said Hamer Findlay. “Her first abstract painting was in 1962, and she participated in many exhibitions.”
Those included both a joint exhibition, with Jack, and a solo exhibition, Stitched Hangings, in 1985 at the Art Gallery of Peterborough.
Currently on display in Vernon’s Bean Scene Coffee House, Sturdy’s Digital Composites is moving to the Armstrong Spallumcheen Art Gallery in time for Thursday’s opening,
Born in Vancouver before it was a large metropolitan city, Sturdy has always been attracted to taking pictures, from his first “Brownie” camera to his latest digital model.
For years he walked the waterfront of Vancouver, where he developed his eye for images. He worked on a Norwegian freighter in his early 20s, visiting many locales that helped to develop his desire to capture images for others to enjoy.
Sturdy’s photography spans the decades.
A photographer for Habitat for Humanity in 1976 and for CBC News in Vancouver, he photographed early New Democratic Party politicians such as Tommy Douglas, Ed Broadbent, and Stephen Lewis, and also former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his then wife Margaret during their heyday in the ‘70s.
His pictures of performing artists appeared on the CBC during the ‘70s and ‘80s.
Since retiring from the CBC, Sturdy has built a collection of photographs from locations in the U.S., Mexico, Cuba and other Caribbean islands. He now uses his digital images to create large murals and collages that are said to be both beautiful and thought-provoking.
“Each mural or collage can contain over 100 images that create one picture, but takes the viewer to a different perspective each time they view them,” said Sturdy’s wife Cyndy.
Besides the Bean Scene, some of those images recently appeared in the group exhibition, Animal Crossing, at the Brew Gallery in Vernon’s Bean to Brew Coffee House, as well as at the Vernon Public Art Gallery.
Sturdy’s art can also be viewed at www.sturdyart.com.
Opening reception for both exhibitions is Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m. The shows run to June 22. Gallery hours are Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information call the gallery at 250-546-8318, or visit www.ArmstrongSpallMuseumArt.com.
