Artists Stan Born, Clyde Finlay, Gayle Halliwell, Jo Smoley and Andrew Zurawsky exhibit in Selkirk this month
Residents will likely have heard the expressions ‘a picture’s worth a thousand words and ‘every painting tells a story’. These sayings have been combined to create the vision behind Visual Chronicles the latest Gwen Fox Gallery exhibit which is on now until March 2.
“We’ve called it Visual Chronicles because it is a story, a record of our creativity,” explained Artist Gayle Halliwell.
In addition to the works of some great Manitoba artists, there is also a little extra this month. Each piece is accompanied by a few sentences which gives residents a glimpse into the minds of the artists as they created their pieces.
This month residents will be treated to works by Stan Born, Clyde Finlay, Halliwell, Jo Smoley and Andrew Zurawsky.
Stan Born
Born is a wood turner and carver from St. Andrews who this month is exhibiting his turned bowls and sculptural pieces.
“I love doing bowls. I like hollow forms, although they’re very difficult,” he said
He says that his inspiration comes from work that he’s seen others do. He then lets that idea bounce around in the back of his mind for a while until it transforms into something that is uniquely his own.
Though most of his pieces are made of wood, he is also showing a turned soapstone piece.
His journey towards creating wood-turned pieces started with a carving class.
“I thought this takes way too long this carving thing, although it was nice to be able to work inside the house because you don’t do a lot of sanding, but I thought there’s got to be a faster way to do this,” said Born.
He picked up a magazine and saw that a man in England was making wood-turned frames on his watermill-powered lathe and the beginnings of finding his craft began to take hold.
At that point, Born made himself a lathe. This lathe has been improved over the years and now is large enough that it can have seven feet between centres.
Born believes that residents should give the Gwen Fox Gallery, which is free to visit, a look.
“People should go to galleries, just because, just for interest sake, just to see what’s going on,” said Born.
Clyde Finlay
Finlay is a multi-media artist with a range that includes oils, watercolour, acrylic and drawings. His work is eclectic with abstract and landscape paintings in the show this month.
“My inspiration is mostly from travel. I do a lot of research. A lot of the research is in Canada, and North America. But I was fortunate enough to go to Europe, and I was in Poland and France. And so, I’ve been influenced by some of the artists that are there in abstract,” said Finlay.
In addition to travelling to Europe, he actually has had his work shown in Poland as well as many locations in the US.
Finlay says that his journey began with his father who learned oil painting from Bob Ross on television.
“He started to watch the TV show, then ordered books and stuff like that. And so his paintings were done that way. I was inspired to go back to the university when I was working for the Justice Department. It took me 12 years part-time, but I got my fine arts degree and that same year, I went international,” said Finlay.
He invites interested people from Selkirk and the surrounding area to make the trek out to visit the gallery.
“Just come here. We’re in a historical building. It’s a beautiful place. The artists are very welcoming. And the art is awesome. It’s got numerous international artists and it’s got beginners. They have classes and they have programs that are here, not only for adults, but for kids,” said Finlay.
Gayle Halliwell
Halliwell made sure to choose works that had a clear story to them and has incorporated works in many mediums in this month’s show. Stopping by the gallery residents will be able to see watercolour and acrylic paintings as well as clay jewellery on display from her.
One of her pieces in particular she shared is about a day as an artist in her gallery. Residents will probably not be surprised by the inclusion of a cup of coffee and a glass of wine but might find the inclusion of a hammer adds a definite point of interest to the story.
“Most of my inspiration comes from Lake Winnipeg, I say that I have lake water in my veins and that comes out in some of them. Not all in this particular show are about that, although I am very influenced by that. And so, the colours I choose, even when I’m not painting the Lake, the pigments and the hues that I use are often highly influenced by those colours,” she said.
Halliwell has always been an art lover and the Winnipeg Beach artist started her journey being inspired to create the works she enjoyed looking at.
“We had creative works in our home, that’s how we made our home beautiful. I always said when we were vacationing or holidaying or whatever we might be doing, ‘Oh, I wish I could paint that.’ And so, when I turned 50, I said, ‘That’s it, I’m doing it.’ I stopped doing my paper and pencil career and moved into a career of becoming a working artist. It took a few years to do that,” she said.
She welcomes residents who want to check out the show this month.
“I think this show is worth seeing. I am not only excited myself, to see the works of my fellow artists that are in it, but to read what they have to say about it, and then to look at that and look at the work and see how that changes how I view the work,” said Halliwell.
Jo Smoley
Smoley is an East St. Paul artist who is showing her acrylic works at the gallery this month. Her works marry the whimsical and natural into the creations she is showing this month.
“It’s the voice of nature that I’m trying to express in my paintings because it’s so alive out there. There are so many ecosystems that are just incredible. They all work together and they coexist and get along. I try to relay that in my art. I try to give them a voice to remind everyone how incredible they are,” said Smoley.
She says that her pieces are a way that people who are stuck in the city or don’t have the opportunity to experience nature can experience more remote areas.
Her style is quite distinctive but hard to categorize as she works towards an abstract style but natural elements make themselves known in her work.
She attributes her creative nature to being encouraged by her family who themselves are creative people.
“My mother painted but she also did everything from quilting to needlework. She loved oil painting and gave her paintings to family members and never sold them. When we went outside Ottawa in the Petawawa area where I visited her sister, and she was selling her artwork. That was a big surprise to me. I went, ‘Holy cow, you can sell this?’” said Smoley.
That encouragement that she was given by her family and she continues to pass along to the next generations.
She says that the artists in this month’s exhibit have found a way to complement each other’s work and the gallery.
“This is one of the best galleries I think in Manitoba. It really shows the artwork to its grandest. There’s a beautiful variety here. We have watercolour, we’ve got acrylics, we’ve got wood carvings, we’ve got pouring painting and some abstracts. There’s so much for an individual to look at,” said Smoley.
Andrew Zurawsky
This is Zurawsky’s first time exhibiting his work at the Gwen Fox Gallery. His art style may vary but the colour and the brightness that his work brings complements the theme and other artist’s work well.
“I do cityscapes and do landscapes. I do architecture like buildings. One of my favourite themes is churches, mostly Ukrainian churches, because that’s my heritage, and to me that sort of represents community,” he said.
In the gallery this month he has 14 pieces in watercolour and acrylic.
He says that he’s greatly inspired by driving around Manitoba and the beauty that he finds.
“Especially southern Manitoba, there are all sorts of little villages or little towns. Some of the communities have disappeared, but the churches are still there. And, to me, that’s history,” he said.
His artistic journey began as a child as he liked to doodle but he says it really took off when he took a watercolour class a little over 30 years ago.
“I took watercolour painting and that’s how I started and then you evolve if you spend enough time at it. You evolve and develop techniques and so on. Some people are maybe fortunate that they have a particular style that’s identifiable and people say that’s so and so’s painting. Mine is a little bit more difficult because I change. I like the colour. I like the way colors work together and so on but the techniques I experiment with so my paintings are different,” said Zurawsky.
He invited residents not just to come by the gallery this month but to keep coming back for inspiration.
“You should stop by, actually, any months. But, there’s a variety of artists and this time is beautiful. The colours are great. The artists are excellent. This gallery is exceptional because every month there’s something here,” he said.
Residents are invited to stop by the gallery Tuesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The admission to the gallery is always free and there is no purchase necessary.
Residents who would like to meet the artists responsible for the work in this month’s exhibit can also come to the artist’s reception on Feb 10 between 1 and 3 p.m.
