Beyond borders is an exhibition of innovative and stunning Canadian Art. Works span the range of artistic expression, each artist imparting with their unique style a little piece of the Canadian spirit. Playful, humorous, saturated with color, and presented in unique fashion, this is an exhibition to delight the senses.
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Adelle Bernadette
 
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The physical, beautiful paintings by Adelle Bernadette display a supreme talent for rendering our world with artistic vision. She holds a rapturous connection with the earth and art is her way of sharing her spirit with others. Adept at both portraiture and landscapes, Bernadette gracefully captures the soul of a person or place with remarkable accuracy and sensitivity. Beautiful light and fascinating perspectives add dimensionality to her work while textures of water, wood, flesh or textiles are tactile and confidently rendered. "My inspiration comes from connecting to the natural beauty and divine presence in all things," she explains. “It is this that I deeply cherish and honor.”
A surprising fact, given the technical virtuosity that her art displays, is that Bernadette began painting a mere six years ago and has since propelled her name to the forefront of contemporary Canadian art. Her career is gaining significant momentum as she exhibits in Canada, the United States, and Europe. Bernadette lives and works in British Columbia.
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"Eyes for Seva"
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"Arbutus at Pender Harbour"
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Carol Bernier
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Crossing barriers of language and culture, Carol Bernier’s incredibly lush paintings speak directly to our most fundamental sensibilities. Her abstractions represent the range of human emotion, with the energizing hues of reds and yellows to the deep tones of tempestuous skies and fearsome oceans. Much akin to the techniques of watercolor painting, Bernier mixes numerous layers of oil paint with varnish and other nontraditional mixed media to create stunning effects with texture and color. These captivating works appeal to our central awareness, rather than telling a story through pictures, the work affronts us with smoldering grit or sooths the soul with creamy hues. By reducing the picture plane to such a pure abstraction, the audience must examine themselves in relation to what is seen, creating a genuine interaction between artist and viewer.
Carol Bernier holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree from the University of Québec in Montréal, and she has exhibited in solo and group shows in Canada, the United States, Mexico and Europe. She lives and works in Montréal.
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"Des Traces de Lune"
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"La Lourdeur de L'air"
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Cathy Boyd
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Cathy Boyd’s work explores the often-overlooked little worlds around us. By reducing the world, she actually expands it—she relishes the cascading setting sun through the branches of a lonesome tree or the interminable ripples of a springtime streambed. Boyd’s works are at once beautiful and contemplative, imploring us to abscond from our modern world for a moment and delight in the simple satisfactions of nature. Working in either pastels or oils, her style ranges from representational precision to painterly abstraction. The colors that she culls from natural settings are often nearly Fauvist without being garish, while on other occasions she displays her talent for a more natural palette. Her work, beyond its technical prowess, possesses a philosophical flair, an expression of peace and unity to all things.
Cathy Boyd lives in Ontario, Canada, where she teaches art at the college level and privately in her studio as well. Her art has been displayed widely throughout Ontario and she is presently expanding her reach into the United States.
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"Spring Thaw"
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"Ordinary Miracles #1"
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Myrna Brooks Bercovitch
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Myrna Brooks Bercovitch paints incandescent figurative works which reflect her inner experience of visual and emotional stimuli as well as her reactions to the constantly changing world around her. Bercovitch's pieces resonate with the vibrations of her experience, communicating to the viewer through color and line the very sentiment of her multi-sensory knowledge. Bercovitch works in collage, painting, drawing, and printing, alone or combined, illustrating figures in repose, flora and fauna, and scenic landscapes (both figurative and abstract). In her collage works, she evokes the scenes of her mindscape, portraying childhood dreams altered by a vivid imagination into drawings and collages.
On her process, she comments: "I see memories and thoughts as layers of texture and color in my head. I love color and transparencies of these tones. Layering plays into the growth of certain images [as] they become more and more abstracted." This unique process results in beautiful, meditative images with new spiritual messages at every glance.
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"Rhythm & Echo Spirit of Treasured Memories"
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"Pollack, Riopelle & Moi"
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Debora Dacci
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With oil and mixed media, Debora Dacci crafts unforgettable landscapes teeming with the energy of life. Dacci’s playful brushwork adds a joyful quality to her work while her attention to atmospheric light helps capture the spirit of the locale that she is portraying. With a palette that is as variable as the skies above, the artist displays a colorful explosion of life in the spring or the sweeping cerulean skies above the mountains and high seas. Dacci’s work has the special quality of someone who understands that a natural setting always possesses a certain personality that makes it unique, much like a portrait artist’s sensitivity to a person’s aura.
Born in Buenos Aires, Dacci moved frequently and so becoming familiar with each new town or city became a personal routine—a custom she continues through her artwork. Her award-winning paintings have been shown internationally, from Prague to Uruguay to New York. She lives and works in Winnipeg, Canada.
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"#12"
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"# 1"
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Monica Deac
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Monica Deac creates richly textured paintings of abstracted landscapes with a mystical understanding and strong love of nature. In painting her canvases, the artist employs a unique approach, applying the oil paint not only with a brush, but with a palette knife and with her fingers. Inspired by the mysterious and sometimes hidden beauty of nature, Deac transports the viewer to a meditative place deep within each canvas. By allowing the viewer this moment of quiet reflection, Deac not only expresses the sublime power of nature, but encourages a kinship between the human spirit and the earth. Just as she manipulates color to elicit feelings and reactions from the viewer, Deac carefully chooses her subjects to serve as symbols for emotions and concepts. Therefore, Deac’s landscapes become not only representational renderings, but truly communicative works of art.
Born in Romania, Deac was profoundly influenced by her upbringing near the Carpathian Mountains. As an artist, she has continued to be inspired by the dramatic landscapes of Vancouver, British Columbia, where she currently resides.
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"Rose Garden"
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"Beyond Borders"
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Lawrie Dignan
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Self-taught artist Lawrie Dignan developed a distinctive style of pointillism that beautifully embodies the rugged regions of his native British Columbia. With technical virtuosity and sensitivity to the ever-shifting play of light, Dignan taps his knowledge of stained glasswork and experience as a technical draftsman to craft whimsical pen and ink images of tree-lined mountains, valleys, and coastlines. “I would like my work to portray a sense of that Changing Reality around and inside of us all,” he states. The bold quality of line work contrasts marvelously with the soft hues of Dignan’s pointillism, achieved through an individualized selection of colors rather than the palette of primary colors used in traditional pointillism.
Lawrie was awarded a solo show in 2001 at the prestigious BC Festival of the Arts. This achievement significantly advanced his notability amongst fellow artists and collectors throughout British Columbia. It also eased his decision to leave his lengthy Ministry of Highways career in 2002, and pursue his artwork full time. Today, Lawrie Dignan’s artworks are found in private collections around the globe.
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"Blended Family"
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"In Dreams"
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Jacques Philippe Hébert
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Just as he subjects Venetian glass to the heat of a kiln and brings out the crystalline intricacies lying dormant in its structures, Canadian artist Jacques Philippe Hébert removes organic forms from their environment and redefines them through the fervor of his art. The familiar shapes of flora, the human body, minerals and deep-ocean life are transformed in a kiln at high temperatures and elevated to a level where they exist provocatively on the edge of abstraction. Colors in Hebert's works seethe as light itself is captured within the glass' magnifying qualities and primordial bubbles. Even his liquid-blue oceans burn with cherry-red veins.
Hebert's work is highly cross-referential, as it speaks of the universal structures and tensions which underlie all phenomenon in the natural world. Whether they suggest crystals, summer lightning, underground root systems or water ripples, the vortices emanating from Hebert's work graphically display a certain undeniable truth: There is a white-hot core from which all things emanate, and Jacques Philippe Hebert's artwork has captured it.
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"Cascade"
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"Nocturne No. 5"
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Pauline Horricks
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Upon first glance, the paintings of Pauline Horricks have an aged quality evoking an aura of nostalgia as translated through memory. She provides the viewer a super-saturated glimpse into the Boreal Forest, utilizing an ethereal light quality in tandem with a poignant color palette. Horricks combines the two to further a heightened sensorial experience, illustrating the ephemeral nature of memories by juxtaposing them with the fleeting beauty of the forest. Likewise, she depicts a fantasy-like glow to her subjects by virtue of an exaggerated contrast between sunlight and shadow, in the style of “chiaroscuro.” Horricks incorporates nature and the sublime, responding with an artistic impulse imbedded in the dream-like quality of her mind's eye. The viewer is drawn to Horricks' paintings because of their eerie wanton quality, seemingly beckoning to be visually trodden upon. Pauline Horricks’ series “Boreal Music” is a testament to the beauty of her childhood memories of the forest that once was.
Pauline Horricks lives and works in Ontario, Canada. Her works have been displayed in numerous exhibitions and can be found in private and corporate collections throughout Canada and the US.
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"Moon Shadow"
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"Late Afternoon"
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Michele Kambolis
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Michele Kambolis’ mixed-media paintings are visual studies of paradoxes. Her works stand in the gap between nature and man, perception and reality, balance and energy, and abstract and figurative, making the viewer question whether these concepts are contradictions or one in the same. The paintings illustrate that human consciousness teeters between the natural, visual world and one’s perception of it.
In long streaks of color, Kambolis drags and blots the wild landscape and natural beauty of Western Canada onto her canvas. The result is a scene so rough and grainy it embodies the fast-and-furious look of an abstract-expressionist painting. This visceral representation pushes the viewer beyond a simple appreciation for natural beauty and toward a deeper connection with the land. Working sand and silver dust into her paint, Kambolis further extends the link between natural elements and depiction of nature. These modeling agents build texture and movement in the paint. At times, the paint and mixed media travel beyond the edge of the canvas, acting as a built-in frame.
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"Ira (Wisdom of Earth)"
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"Kanta (The Lustrous)"
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Evan King
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In the milieu of high-tech mass production, advertising no longer has much to do with artistic aspirations. But Evan King is not delimited by the trends of his time. His art brings to mind fantasies of Toulouse-Lautrec transplanted from metropolitan Paris to the Canadian wilderness. Despite being well under 40, King's work in acrylics (usually on wood) evoke an earlier, simpler era. His imagery does not so much represent as it does supply the viewer with a feeling, a sense of what it is to be in the presence of the subject or immersed in the environment depicted. Fields of chalky color abut at black outlines, building coherent wholes from clearly delineated fractions—a feat that a less-sure hand might easily fail to achieve.
Evan King's experience traveling throughout his native Canada and its variety of landscape has helped him develop an eye for the nature of each particular place that enables him to create works that are completely transporting in spite of their total disinterest in anything approaching photorealism.
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"Red Foothills"
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"Life on the Lakefront"
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Aaron W. Lacey
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Aaron W. Lacey creates remarkable artworks with a mixed media process that incorporates molding pastes, clothing and acrylic paint. While evoking consumer culture as in Pop Art and the untamed aesthetics of Abstract Expressionism, each piece has an individual character based upon the materials that he is working with. The petrified state of the fabrics appear nearly archaeological while its textures and folds create a visually dynamic force within the work. By varying his process Lacey is able to create a swath of fascinating effects, from bubbling metal to glistening flower petals. "My work is unique and rare because I have fused science, art and fashion," he states. "All my work has texture for the purpose of touch."
Lacey is a graduate of the former Canadian Forces School of Intelligence & Security (CFSIS), and in the absence of a formal artistic education he has certainly blazed an exceptional path. His works have been acquired by numerous advertising and production companies including such major companies as Bell Mobility and Labatt's Brewery. Aaron W. Lacey lives and works in Beamsville, Canada.
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"Arctic Blooms"
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"Frutti di Mare"
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Pascal Lareau
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Pascal Lareau’s paintings seem full of magic. His quick dabs of bright pastels sparkle across the paper, while his long swishes of paint still retain a sense of lucidity. What makes Lareau’s paintings stand out even more then most artists’ is his lack of color. There are oftentimes large portions of paper without even a hint of color. Blank, white, however they are interpreted; they make the colors Lareau does use jump off the page and into the viewer’s imagination.
Lime green dominates the color scheme, with accents of cotton-candy pinks, mystical lavenders, and flesh tones. In paintings in which Lareau uses color more liberally, the colors overlap and drip into each other. Primarily fanciful portraits, Lareau’s work features characters that exude personality. Whether a painting is just a headshot or shows someone in a particular scene, the viewer is apt to wonder about the story of the character’s life and circumstances. The works of landscape and intangible concepts, meanwhile, stir up emotion through Lareau’s thick application of color. Pascal Lareau's works have been displayed and published in Europe and in Canada.
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"At Dawn"
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"The End of My Father"
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John Mackintosh
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Canadian painter John Mackintosh uses a personal iconography and heavily stylized aesthetic that remain widely accessible. His works with acrylic have a sweeping grandeur that evokes an aura of myth and universal resonance. Complex figures and settings burst forth with dramatic and clean three-dimensional hues, eliciting an uncanny impression of volume. Mackintosh uses strong colors, sharp dramatic lines and carefully rendered shading to create a sense of connection and narrative progression that leads viewers through the canvas.
Indeed, much of Mackintosh’s self-taught art practice is informed by his interest in systems of belief, faith and nature. Accordingly, his paintings pose natural shapes, objects and beings in highly-symbolic settings, creating a kind of spiritual model from relatively common figures. In elaborately abstracted backdrops and characters melded with their natural surroundings, viewers get a sense of the metaphysical connections linking supposedly separate entities. Disparate objects brought under John Mackintosh’s softly grandiose aesthetic achieve a kind of synergy, testifying to the presence of some invisible power connecting all living things.
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"Beyond Duality Lies"
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"Heaven and Earth-Union"
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Linda McKenny
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Linda McKenny's landscape paintings take certain cues from Canada's Group of Seven, portraying the nation's spectacular natural scenery in a stylized figurative mode. McKenny's sweeping views of Western Canadian landscapes are more accurately magical realistic. Her style of application subtly exaggerates shading, so that surfaces and textures seem nearly three-dimensional. There's a hint of hyperrealism in such details, as in the glow of McKenny's reflective lakes and distant sun-drenched mountaintops.
Her paintings never exceed such magical renderings of nature, never veer into artifice. Views unfold in a series of planes, as though she is unveiling some unseen spectacle for the viewer. Various cues – most often a body of water – lead the eye through this succession of near and distant areas. McKenny's landscapes frequently depict nature across a river or lake. This sense of spectatorship – of observing from a removed distance – intimates the environmentalist agenda that informs her practice. "My work," McKenny explains, "allows people to become more aware of the beauty being threatened."
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"Morning at Medicine Lake"
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"The Icefields Parkway in Summer, Jasper, Alberta"
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Nicholas Palmer
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Inspired by the adversity that characterizes the world around him, Nicholas Palmer creates striking images that challenge the viewer to see the commonalities that link people together. Although his work begins as a way to reconcile his own internal conflicts, Palmer uses dramatic, dark colors, rich textural paint strokes, and dynamic images to create a powerful visual drama that explores the ongoing quest for human understanding in a globalizing community. Through this process, Palmer assumes the role of a warrior as he brings this struggle to life through visual means. His paintings are imbued with a primal energy and his brushstrokes become breaths, slowly joining together to form paintings that are alive with his passionate spirit.
Palmer continues to explore his deep interest in the way individuals define themselves within the constraints of social and cultural references. His art is an ambassador to the seemingly disparate cultures around him, allowing each viewer to see himself as part of the overarching community of mankind. Palmer lives and works in Ontario, Canada.
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"Rising Son"
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"New Moon Whisper"
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Lynda Pogue
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The evocative and inspirational works of award-winning Canadian painter Lynda Pogue lend themselves well to an air of personal meditation. These mixed media paintings are wonderful to behold, the variety of textures and strokes vacillate between substantial forms and airy, loose brushwork. Working in encaustics and water-based media with stylistic components that hearken back to traditional landscape painters, indigenous artists, and the Minimalists, Pogue uses her formidable artistic repertoire to create a soothing arena for her audience. The paintings act as a doorway between two individuals, “When showing another person one of my paintings, I stand exposed and vulnerable," she explains. “It’s now between the artist and the viewer. This is a powerful moment for me.” She has a long and diverse history in the arts as a student, consultant, teacher, and author.
Widely sought after, her work is in collections around the globe from South Africa to Spain. Pogue lives and works outside of Toronto, Ontario. |
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"Pulsing"
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"Breakthrough"
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Jane Richardson
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Playful and inventive, the paintings of Jane Richardson retain their individuality by developing a clever orchestra of abstract symbols to vocalize various concepts. Her subject matter varies widely, exploring social roles or reveling in natural landscapes and dazzling abstractions, each painting remains a distinctive moment in time. Richardson works in acrylic or mixed media and her palette knife strokes and impasto treatment coincide with a strong awareness of the communicative power of color. Constantly developing her style, Richardson has begun working with metallic paints and experimenting with different materials such as copper and embedded canvas.
Born in British Columbia, Richardson has a background in Biology and teaching, and she has an affinity for the natural wonders of the northern wilds that can often be seen in her work. She has exhibited frequently in Vancouver and has recently acquired representation in New York, while working to expand her Leighdon Studio Gallery into an arts center for exhibitions and art education.
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"Cu (Copper) I"
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"Cu (Copper) II"
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Jacqueline Staikos
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In Jacqueline Staikos’ oil paintings, familiar images begin to look disarmingly foreign—a leaf resembles a swaddled infant or a cloud resembles a luxurious lock of hair. Staikos’ landscape-inspired paintings are carefully composed, yet her forms take on a free-spirited life of their own, suggesting a fantastic world in which nature is surreally intensified.
Line work, attenuated detail, and an earthy palette distinguish Staikos’ aesthetic. Staikos works intuitively, responding to her materials and forms and letting her painting develop spontaneously. Since she treats every line, every shadow, and every highlight as an organism with its own autonomous identity, the elements of her paintings coalesce to create a panorama of self-assured forms. This confident, harmonizing approach reinterprets the wrought tradition of figurative landscape painting, turning landscape into dreamscape. Born in France, Staikos grew up in Canada and has shown widely. She currently lives and works in the Quinte Region of Ontario.
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"Untitled"
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"Electric Blue"
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Valery Vinokurov
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The cubism of Pablo Picasso and the overlapping imagery found in the surrealism of Marc Chagall merge in Valery Vinokurov’s thought-provoking artwork. Although figurative, Vinokurov’s paintings are creative explorations of shape. He dissects shapes into more shapes, playing with the way we perceive objects. Groups of people are the predominate subject matter of Vinokurov’s paintings. Oftentimes, these people are trios of women. Whether appearing as sisters, nudes, or musicians they exude a peaceful yet strong presence. The cubist element to the paintings suggests the multifaceted aspect of womanhood, while the fact that three women interlock indicates a divine trinity. Although Vinokurov gives special attention to the feminine mystique, he also paints men and non-gender-specific humans. Furthermore, music and the city are recurring themes in his work. Meditative cool colors wash Vinokurov’s canvas. Soft blues, shy purples, dusty pinks, and brooding grays make the paintings serene and pensive. When Vinokurov works in bright colors, he punches up his moody pastels with heavy doses of red.
Vinokurov was born in Riga, Latvia, and currently resides in western Canada.
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"Stone City"
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"Musical Reflection"
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