INSIDE THE OUTSIDE – Group Show

This group exhibition features six artists from the West Coast to the East Coast, who use artmaking to overcome isolation and the challenges of being human. The group ranges from self-taught artists living in isolated communities, to artists surviving the urban daily rush.

Clare Singleton of Ladysmith (Vancouver Island), has worked as a log salvager, health care worker, teacher and artist. Her bold and colourful drawings depict a range of pivotal moments in her life journey, both times of grief as well as joy. Her commitment to understanding and illustrating this journey has resulted in a large body of work with many insights for the viewer. Both her West Coast roots and Quaker faith are evident throughout her images.

“I am a self taught artist and like to follow my own path and tell my ‘stories’ in drawings. Now, more or less, I live in a small wasteland town as a type of modern hermit.” Carl Alessi, St.
Clair, Pennsylvania

Evelyne Brosseau sources images and figures from popular culture to create her collages filled with colour and dynamism. With chaotic gestures she adds images, until the artwork finds its balance between tension and rest. Brosseau lives in Vancouver.

Tanis Alexis Laird delves into “the small, large, and the infinite” as she explores her spiritual existence and the physics of science and space. By rooting herself in this knowledge of the ‘invisible,’ Laird ventures back into the ‘visible’ reality of the world. This Port Moody artist’s journey from 2004-07 references the natural world, including her acrylic paintings of surreal and abstract patterns to more recent use of mixed media.

Vancouver artist and art therapist, Jerry Stochansky, exhibits his repository of memories, produced as a form of self-directed art therapy. His collages channel the emotional work he does with his own art therapy clients, and enables him to separate his inner life from his professional practice. Once complete, his artwork has “served as a visual journal to making sense of the painfulness of being human.”

“Beauty in the darkest of places” describes the journey of mental health survivor J. Peachy, a Filipino Canadian living in Gastown. His artwork draws upon the disintegration and emotional hardship he has endured. Through his healing journey, he has become familiar with all of his senses, and his gallery installation will involve this multi-sensory approach.

Artists Talk, Saturday, June 2, 2007, 2-3pm, Free, Refreshments. Meet the artists and learn about their healing journey through art production.