The latest show in the gallery inside the Cultural Centre is timely and titled H2O Under Attack, by artist Diane White.
The exhibit has transformed the Chilliwack Visual Artists Art Gallery into a protest camp, taking artist aim at environmental threats like the Enbridge Pipeline project.
White’s politically energized paintings, with stunning landscapes of B.C., offset by yellow ribbons of stenciled environmental messages of concern, command the gallery space.
Water, everyone’s most precious natural resource, is the central focus of her paintings.
The large canvasses honour water in several forms: luxuriant, pulsating forests, towering cloud formations and multi-layered mountainscapes. The colour and natural forms jump off the canvas. The signature painting, H2O Under Attack is large ( 12’ X 4’7”), and complex in nature. Pipelines, tar sands, oil spills, and natural landscape flood the picture frame. The painting is the result of a trip taken by the artist to Gwaai Haanas and her experience visiting and breathing in the quiet solitude of that wonderful landscape. Stencilled explosive statements against the proposed Enbridge Pipeline complete the artist’s statement: We all live downriver.
The Chilliwack Visual Artists Art Gallery is located at 9201 Corbould Street in Chilliwack. White’s show runs from August 2 to September 13, See more at vanishinglandscapes.com dianewhite@uniserve.com
