Thirteen artists of the Cariboo Artists Guild have come together this month to put together Untitled at the Showcase Gallery.
Kathy Crawshay said the show is a collection of paintings old and new with no set theme. This is because the guild is currently preparing for its 41st annual summer art show at Parkside Gallery next month.
“People have just brought favourite old pieces, pieces from home, some people have painted new art and it’s just to share it with the community,” Crawshay said.
For Untitled, artist Patsy Granberg submitted a painting of woodpeckers, suspecting that her fellow artists would go with an outdoor theme. Cheryl Gauthier, meanwhile, submitted a piece that she hasn’t shown to the public for more than 20 years. She painted Beyond the Birch in 150 Mile House of a local historic home, during an art class.
“It was in my closet and I thought ‘that deserves to be shown again,'” Gauthier said. “It’s one of my favourites, I don’t know why I let it sit there.”
As she does more work with watercolours these days, Gauthier said it’s nice to look back at her old acrylic work, which she thinks are some of her best paintings. She added it fits in quite nicely with all the other artist’s amazing and colourful pieces.
Penny Bailey was one of the artists who opted to offer something new for the show, painting Meadow’s Treasure. Over the past two weeks, Bailey decided to paint some hay bales in a field. She’s taken hundreds of photos of them over the years but this is her first time painting them.
“I just wanted to have some fun with colour, instead of just depicting them exactly from the photo. I did my own thing,” she said.
Bailey said the show was very spontaneous but she was happy with the turnout and diversity of the paintings hung in the gallery. Having no theme can be fun sometimes and she thinks this is one of the guild’s best shows so far.
Other artists featured this month include Carol Munro, Jess Thomas, Leslie Ginther, Olaug Jaenicke, Neil Pinkett, Katalin Kovacs, Barb McClusky, Sheryl Fremlin and Bobbie Crane.
The theme for next month’s art show will be Emily Carr, whose image is depicted on Parkside Gallery’s mural. Over the winter, the guild shared and read Carr’s memoirs and were inspired by her independent free spirit and search for the spirits of nature.
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Meadow’s Treasure by Penny Bailey.
