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X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Andrew and Laura McCain Art Gallery
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210327
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210509
DTSTAMP:20210906T220253Z
CREATED:20210306T193932Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210906T220253Z
UID:3918-1616803200-1620518399@mccainartgallery.com
SUMMARY:Gordon Dunphy Vessels
DESCRIPTION:“What’s important to try to catch [is] the spirit that trees have\, especially big old hardwood trees\, and if I can catch that and make it look simple … the best forms are those that look as if they just happened.” Gordon Dunphy. \nGordon Dunphy lived on the banks of the Nashwaak River\, near Taymouth\, NB where he had a dairy farm until he turned from farming to embrace the art of wood turning\, making a distinct and significant contribution to New Brunswick’s cultural landscape. The New Brunswick poet Michael Pacey has attributed an “innate sense of mischief as key to Dunphy’s explorations and subversions of time-honoured artistic binaries such as art and nature\, art and craft\, form and content\, inside and outside.” Working with wood all his life\, he turned stumps and gnarly burls into classic vessel forms\, with paper-thin walls and highly polished surfaces\, that maintain the distinctive characteristics of the original material and transcend the craft. \nSome of his most distinctive pieces were created from burls\, “when the cells start to grow faster than the tree itself\, [they produce] a protruding growth on the tree. And often\, not always\, but often\, it’s a beautiful grain in colour\,” Dunphy said. The artist’s ability to find great beauty in a common\, classic piece of New Brunswick nature\, the hardwood tree\, meant that very quickly his art was collected the world over\, and he won every significant craft award in New Brunswick. “He just saw things in wood that nobody else could\,” said Kate Rogers\, previous director of the New Brunswick Crafts Council. \nWhile co-curating this exhibition in 2019\, Jennifer Pazienza observed that “Gordon is a poet whose verse is written upon and within his vessels. The object that stands before you\, the spaces they create carry the poetic imagination of Gordon Dunphy. The poetics that constitute them resonate and reverberate with imagination that comes from the depths and reverie of his daydreams; a place where\, as Gaston Bachelard said\, time ceases to exist\, and space is everything. These vessels ask us to consider ways they influence the space they occupy within the place we find them. They ask us to reflect upon them and our relationship to them\, to engage with and beyond their surfaces and read between their lines and shape”. \nConsidered one of the finest wood turners in North America\, nearly 30 works were donated to the Beaverbrook’s collection in 2009 after the artist died. Many of them are on view here. The collection was assembled by the artist as a legacy documenting his career. “In a sense\, Dunphy curated this exhibition himself\,” says John Leroux\, the Gallery’s Manager of Collections and Exhibitions. \nExhibition co-curated by Jennifer Pazienza and John Leroux and organised by the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.
URL:https://mccainartgallery.com/exhibitions/gordon-dunphy-vessels/
LOCATION:New Brunswick
CATEGORIES:Exhibitions,Past Exhibitions
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210327
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210509
DTSTAMP:20211106T211917Z
CREATED:20210326T202538Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211106T211917Z
UID:3936-1616803200-1620518399@mccainartgallery.com
SUMMARY:Out of the Woods:James Buxton\,Francine Simard Levesque\, Colin Smith
DESCRIPTION:Out of the Woods brings together three carvers from northern New Brunswick who are inspired by nature and share a love of working with wood on a small scale. Their divergent intentions for their work reinforced by their stylistic choices confirm their individual voices despite their common materials and tools. \nJames Buxton\nBorn and raised in Riverbank\, James has been sculpting all his life and has been carving for over 30 years. A self-taught carver James also works in steel\, stone\, and assemblage. Working out of the River Art Centre Studios\, James also regularly teaches a variety of classes.\n“I can’t stop making art – always have – and carving\, working in 3 dimensions has always interested me. I am also a keen observer of nature and the habits and characteristics of birds. Carving the birds starts with selecting the right shaped block of wood\, and carefully forming the body by paying very close attention to the unique characteristics of each species. Looking closely at the shapes inside the animal’s form\, like the swell of the beak\, tilt of the head\, the pattern\, shape and layers of feathers and all the other distinguishing characteristics that each bird has\, I try to capture the natural stance of the bird. In the final colour\, I strive for as great a verisimilitude as possible. Flock\, 2020\, on loan from the Public Art Collection of the Town of Florenceville-Bristol\, is a collection of birds that are common to the Upper Saint John River Valley”. James Buxton \nArtist James Buxton making Ash Baskets \n“I love to work with my hands – can’t keep them still or stay in one place unless I am working on an art piece. I like to think that I am plagiarizing nature with my birds. Making them real”. \nFrancine Simard Levesque\nFrancine Simard Levesque is a self taught artist\, born and raised in the northwestern part of New Brunswick. At a young age she was surrounded by artistic people who encouraged her to explore in every artistic discipline presented to her. Francine started to create with wood in 1985 and now concentrates on sculpture only. \n“It is creating with the beauty of wood that makes me want to be an artist. When I find a piece of wood\, I have no control over what I see. It is the spirit of the forest\, of the trees that speak to me and that show me the human faces and animals I make. I try to keep that spirit alive in the sculpture.  Every piece I make shares the forest spirit and carries the message “Keep the trees alive”\, for the animals and for us.”  \n“The forest is a visualization of my feelings when in the solitude of the trees. It is the softness of the air and the smell of the leaves. It is the coarseness of the bark and the sounds of the animals. I feel it all. I am part of the forest and it is part of me.”  Francine Simard Levesque \nFrancine at work in her studio \n“En réalité\, c’était la sculpture qui m’attirait. J’ai grandi à Edmundston et lorsque je me rendais à la cathédrale de l’Immaculée-Conception\, j’étais fascinée par les sculptures et les détails. Je trouvais ça impressionnant.  Lorsque j’ai appris qu’il y avait un groupe de sculpture à Grand-Sault\, je me disais que j’irais rencontrer ces gens pour avoir des outils et je me suis mise à sculpter avec eux.” \nColin Smith\nColin Smith taught high school art\, theatre\, and English for 20 years.  His work has been exhibited in galleries throughout NB and is included in public and private collections.  For 11 years\, his drawings and cartoons were featured weekly in the Salon section of the Telegraph Journal.  He works out of his studio in the River Art Centre in downtown Florenceville-Bristol. \n“I have always drawn.  Several years ago\, I decided my drawings did not look solid enough on the paper.  So\, I started carving\, to figure out how to give my drawings a sense of weight.  And it worked.  It showed me some stuff about drawing\, by making me look at it differently\, and I grew to really enjoy carving.” \nI work small.  The shape of the wood generally determines what’s carved.  Some of my whittlings look like residue from my distant ancestors.  Some of them look a bit more modern.  They are worked with knives\, chisels\, and axes\, in a very unsophisticated way.  I have found that every cut changes my idea of the project.  I may start out with an idea\, but the wood itself\, by breaking and revealing its shapes and curls \, keeps editing and suggesting.  I never know how the little carvings will turn out\, and that’s why I do them. \nThe Boat sculpture is the result of Jamie Buxton’s misbegotten attempt to pull me into the twentieth century.  He showed me how to use rotary carvers\, and The Boat is the result.  It is a tribute to schools and to Carleton North High School\, the building I spent the last twenty years in.  It is an affectionate good bye to what I still think is the greatest\, and most important\, job in the world.” Colin Smith \nColin Smith \n“Life inspires me. For years I drew people interacting\, in supermarkets and streets.  I drew high school kids\, simultaneously terrified and deeply self-assured.  And I drew thousands of cartoons\, and published some of them in the Salon Section of the Telegraph Journal for a decade – historical\, topical\, linguistic – really anything but overtly political. I have a sketchbook with me always and I draw everything.  It is\, after all\, a way of seeing.”
URL:https://mccainartgallery.com/exhibitions/out-of-the-woods/
LOCATION:New Brunswick
CATEGORIES:Exhibitions,Past Exhibitions
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210515
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210704
DTSTAMP:20210906T215751Z
CREATED:20210415T192649Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210906T215751Z
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SUMMARY:Owen Munisamy
DESCRIPTION:Theme & VariationsThe exhibition includes watercolour and acrylic paintings created between 2016 and 2021. Born in a musical family in Liège\, Belgium in 1987\, Owen  pursued his art studies in England where he obtained his BA (Honours) in Fine Art in 2011 from Winchester School of Art\, Southampton University. In 2018 Owen and his family settled in Edmundston\, NB. \n“During my university studies\, the professor suggested to us that we should seek inspiration from our homes\, our family backgrounds and our surroundings. Coming from a musical family it was thus quite normal that I should look to music\, especially to the sculptural forms of wood and brass instruments and their intricate mechanisms. My first years of painting were thus spent researching and gradually creating an enigmatic musical world with biomorphic forms of musical instruments [blended] with human elements [to create] a universe of extremely rich and varied forms which are organic and alive.” \nFeatured in the most recent edition of Created Here Magazine\, Munisamy explores a form of abstraction that blends biological\, suggestively human elements (which might remind you of the sculptures of British artists Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth) with the geometrical\, hard-edged shapes of contemporary technology. In vivid and bold colour\, Munisamy creates variations on a theme of collapsing and exploding spheres suspended on illusory planes\, within expansive atmospheres and accompanied with surprising allusions to both art and the real world. At any point the artist’s imagery can transport us to the microscopic or to outer space. Another influence on the artist was Salvador Dali and if you can remember his famous melting clock\, you are well on your way to envisioning Munisamy’s biomorphic inventions. Tree trunks\, bicycle wheels\, telescopes\, lines\, wedges\, and the unexpected biological form can all be discovered in these enigmatic paintings\nOwen’s diverse interests and influences include cartooning\, Metaphysical and Surrealist painting. Bold colour contrasts\, strong diagonals and areas of complexity contrasting with passages of delicate colour and light result in images that fuse technology with the human form. \n“Likewise I have always been attracted to strip cartoons by the artists Enki Bilal (for his sombre atmospheres)\, Jean Giraud / Moebius (for his imagination and details) and Phillippe Druillet (for his dark backgrounds and very contrasting colours). Aldo Pomodoro and Anish Kapoor also inspired me\, the first by his spheres with a complexity of details reflecting another world\, the second by his voids that pull the viewer towards the interior. As de Chirico says: “Even that dreams are an inexplicable mystery but even more mysterious are the thoughts that converge to certain objects and aspects of life. \nIn parallel with my oil paintings I use watercolours. I employed that technique to start with as a means of research for my oil paintings. My watercolours are a long search from complex structures to now more delicate and sensitive paintings. My works are progressively becoming more architectural with fewer musical details. I am always engaged in creative research\, always going forward\, always evolving ….”
URL:https://mccainartgallery.com/exhibitions/owen-munisamy/
LOCATION:New Brunswick
CATEGORIES:Exhibitions,Past Exhibitions
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DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20210515T103000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20210619T170000
DTSTAMP:20210906T215350Z
CREATED:20210422T181907Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210906T215350Z
UID:4051-1621074600-1624122000@mccainartgallery.com
SUMMARY:Kathy Tidswell
DESCRIPTION:Colours of NatureKathy Tidswell has a long career of working with textiles in a variety of creative ways. Her materials include paint and dye\, machine stitching\, as well as cloth that is found or created. The artist identifies two areas of exploration in the artwork included in the exhibition: Wall Quilts and Thread Stitching. In both bodies of work\, the artist continually turns to Nature for inspiration. \n“I strive to recreate nature’s beauty realistically in my work. Often inspired by my own photographs\, I use hand painted and commercial fabric to create a wall quilt or paint a scene on fabric and bring it to life using thread\, working with a domestic sewing machine. The needle becomes my paintbrush as I move the fabric freely. While my artistic medium is primarily thread\, my painted fabric backgrounds support the production of landscapes and life-like three dimensional images of birds\, wildlife and portraits. My wish is to transport the viewer to a unique place\, whether it is a forest stand\, a beach delivering the glories of a morning sunrise\, or a backyard hosting our joyous songbirds. \nTrees are special to me and have always featured very much in my work. Perhaps I have been influenced by my years working for the Canadian Forestry Service or perhaps it is my love of texture and dimension. Whatever is the case\, trees have offered me many inspirations.” Kathy Tidswell
URL:https://mccainartgallery.com/exhibitions/kathy-tidswell/
LOCATION:New Brunswick
CATEGORIES:Exhibitions,Past Exhibitions
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