Artists are paying homage to Canada’s sesquicentennial with an exhibit at Art 10 Gallery this month.
The exhibit, Celebrating 150 Years Canada, features nearly 20 gallery artists.
“We are very proud to be Canadian artists and we wanted to celebrate that by having a show that we could all participate in,” said Lee Stead, president of Art 10 Gallery and one of the featured artists, adding that an invitation to participate was sent to all Art 10 Gallery members. “It was a bit of a challenge, a bit of a fun project, normally we have a feature show for one artist.It was kind of fun to open it up to the whole group and let them express what Canada means to them in their favourite medium.”
Stead’s piece is a small painting, which has a red and white stripped background with the word eh in white with a question mark on a green speech bubble.
“I just think it’s so Canadian to say eh,” said Stead.
Stead has painted for more than 30 years and calls the medium her “first love.” Although now she works primarily as a potter. She decided to take a pottery wheel class and said didn’t like creating items on the wheel, but “totally fell in love with clay.”
“It’s very tactile. I always work from a slab, so you can create absolutely anything. I can create anything I can think of with a slab of clay. I love it,” said Stead. “But I have never walked away from painting. I still have as much passion for painting as I ever did.”
Dorothy Sevcov, a founding member of Art 10 Gallery, chose to display a small watercolour depicting Neck Point.
“That’s really my favourite place to go for outdoor painting,” said Sevcov. “When we do have a feature like this we get a few month’s notice, but everybody kind of racks their brain to make sure it’s Canada, like Canada geese and the scenery.
“I think we all express ourselves in different mediums, different styles. When you go around the gallery there isn’t anyone that paints like the next one.”
Celebrating 150 Years Canada runs at Art 10 Gallery until the end of July. The gallery is located at Nanaimo North Town Centre.
For more information about Art 10 Gallery, please visit http://bit.ly/2uHCGdY.
