There’s still time to catch the art exhibition by the self-styled Three Musketeers (abstract painter Doris Anderson, 91-year-old self-taught artist Don Sharpe and local and international artist Laara WilliamSen) at South Surrey’s Good Day Sunshine Cafe, which continues until Monday.
All, in a way, are united in depicting highly personalized ‘landscapes’ – even though they may represent states of mind rather than specific scenes.
WilliamSen, former proprietor of White Rock’s Bringers of the Dawn Healing Art Studio is well known locally for her emotionally evocative semi-abstract work and her current paintings at the cafe, several of them suggestive of the fluidity of waterscapes, are ultimately stimulating explorations of positive aesthetic energy.
Nominated for the prestigious Palm Art Award in Europe this year, WilliamSen has also participated in an online exhibition of abstract expressionism through the Carl Benz Cloud University (www.benz-academy.org/en/culture/exhibition/Laara.WilliamSen) and was the representative for Canada at the IN3 International Show in Dallas, Tx. last year.
Closer to home, her work was featured in the show Picnic at the Ocean Park Library in June and she is also continues to be a tireless promoter of fellow artists.
Anderson’s abstract work is a natural fit for WilliamSen’s – while her canvases may be suggestive of external scenes, she agrees her work on display at the cafe consists of more “internal landscapes” such as the painting ‘Choices,’ a visual symphony of yellows, browns and blacks.
“It just comes – I don’t sit and plan it,” she said of her paintings. “With abstract, there’s a release of energy in action that comes through. Sometimes when I paint I pick up vibrations and this expresses them for me. It’s art that comes from the heart.”
Another is more directly suggested by a real landscape – the view from Anderson’s studio – but expressed in abstract terms.
“It’s a mood I wanted to create – an early morning scene, looking out through trees. It felt so peaceful, but with the light behind it there is the promise of something.”
Sharpe’s work is also an exploration of a highly personal landscape – the scenes he remembers of cattle and bunkhouses from a colourful youth, in which, between stints running sideshows for a touring circus, and hopping freight trains, and worked as a cowboy “at the Bar U Ranch in the foothills of Alberta.”
His pieces, rendered in primitivist fashion on an unorthodox surface – recycled styrofoam – have their own unusual energy, which has been championed by WilliamSen, who has encouraged him to frame them and also take first steps into acrylic painting.
“I started doodling on styrofoam containers with felt pens,” he said.
“I enjoy doing them. I’ve got time on my hands. They represent places I was at one time – I was a cowboy up until I was 37 and then I got married and worked for the B.C. Government.
“I’ve got to put mountains in every one – there were always mountains on the skyline.”
Good Day Sunshine Cafe, 2950 King George Blvd. (in the High Street shopping development just behind Staples at Southpoint Exchange Mall).
