Life at the beach supplies the theme for the two upcoming featured artists for March at arts store and display venue The Gallery, Central Plaza (15134 North Bluff Rd).
While Sandra Tomchuk and Gail Nesimiuk usually work independently, the long-time friends have been known to team up to paint an occasional series – and the collaboration always seems to inspire a different style of painting for both.
Tomchuk said that instead of displaying, side-by-side, paintings done by each artist, they literally paint each canvas as a team.
“This time she’s painted the backgrounds and I’ve supplied the foreground figures,” she explained.
“We’ve usually done them together – in the past we’ve done ocean-themed abstracts where we’re both painting at the same time,” she said.
“But when we started this series COVID-19 was just hitting, so we did our parts separately, arranging for them to be dropped off or picked up by the other artist as soon as our contribution was finished.”
Veteran artist Nesimiuk – who says she has been an artist since she could first hold a paint brush – has long been part of the Semiahmoo Peninsula arts scene, interrupted by a 20-year stint in Thailand, during which she and her late husband, Ric, served as missionaries.
Even then she continued to paint, holding many fundraising exhibitions with the proceeds going to help AIDS babies, and other worthy causes over there.
Tomchuk, who is an active member of the Federation of Canadian Artists and has shown her work in many exhibitions over the years, said she owes her start in the art world entirely to being asked to do a show with Nesimiuk.
“I never thought about becoming an artist until Gail asked me to do a show with her and I had some sales,” she said.
“I’ve known Sandra since she was seven years old,” Nesimiuk. “I knew she had artistic talent.”
The Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call 604-531-8226.
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