OPENS Oct 8th-27th
An Inevitable Beauty
What was lost is found again in paint and clay
By artists Sara Weins, Ilena Lee Cramer and Jools Andres
MORE SOON
ABOUT THE WORK
Artist Statement – Julie Andrés
A leaf’s journey doesn’t end when it loses its capacity to photosynthesize. Fallen leaves succumb to senescence, then float, drift, crumble, and feed themselves to the microbes and fungi of the earth.
Following long pandemic years with trees as my primary physical friends, it feels apropos to focus on this aspect of their lives as I rediscover myself as an artist in late adulthood.
Culturally, freshness and youth are held as the ideal, and the opposite end of life is often hidden and even disparaged. But the grace of a tender green leaf continues through its subsequent stages; after summer’s growth and feeding frenzy, it separates from the mother plant and flutters earthward. While no longer alive, it can dazzle us with astonishing colour transformation.
The autumn leaves that gather at the edges of water bodies particularly fascinate me. The sky and trees cradle them with their watery reflections, and they eventually sink and become the very mud below. I paint a world between the mud and the sky.
Sometimes dark and moody, sometimes bright and ethereal, my paintings are usually inspired by photographs I have taken, many in the Trout Lake area of Vancouver. If I had to describe my approach to painting in a few words I might say something like, “minimal planning, patient with process.”
Artist Statement - Sara Wiens
Charcoal Sentinels- Climate Change, Conservation, and a Hopeful Landscape.
Wiens’ current work is about the local loss of indigenous trees and forest due climate change. Fire season is becoming an expected and unwelcomely frequent event. Wiens’ paintings document areas around the North Shuswap that have experienced fire in recent years. Charcoal trees are left standing guard, memorializing the event, yet beneath the trees vibrant undergrowth is claiming back the scorched earth. As companies and individuals persist in destructive environmental action, climate change denial is also flaring up. It’s challenging to have compassion for people who are angry and afraid while we are running out of time. We are holding the tensions of grief and hope while our land is on fire.
Having lived through several stressful fire situations and seasons, Wiens has experienced the anxiety of smoky skies and being on alert to flee. In the last 8 years, the proximity of local fires meant that surrounding rural areas are evacuating their animals and her city of Salmon Arm is housing the outlying residents during periods of intense fire activity. Most recently in 2023, the sky became black with raining ash the night the city opened a large music festival. That fire, the Adams Lake Complex wildfire, resulted in 176 structural losses and even more damaged structures. At the same time, Kelowna was experiencing the aggressive Grouse Complex wildfires that evacuated 30,000 residents and destroyed or damaged 303 structures. Meanwhile, in the North Shuswap, matters were exacerbated when residents of the affected areas decided to abscond with fire fighting equipment in order to protect their personal properties believing that the BC Wildfire service was not doing enough. Deep distrust of government and anti-authority sentiments were factors in the conflict.
The summer before, Wiens and her family drove past the site of a previous fire along the Coquihalla highway. At the time of the fire in 2021, the Wiens family (including a niece from Bowen Island) barely made it through the road before it closed due to the fire danger. It was the closest they had been to an out of control wildfire and it was terrifying. The following year, the scene was breathtaking with fluorescent green undergrowth punctuated by patches of purple fireweed. The haunting beauty of this now peaceful scene compared to the experience of panic the year before was so striking that Wiens set out to draw attention to the dichotomy of these strangely apocalyptic stands of charcoal trees while the earth below them sprouts hope.
This hope could inspire us to do more to face the challenges of our climate. Hope that we will resist the urge to ignore and subsequently lose our chance to address the problem of climate disasters. Hope, because the earth knows what to do if we are paying attention.
Artist Statement- Ilena Lee Cramer
(she or Them)
Ilena creates on the unceded, ancestral, and occupied, traditional lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Səl̓ílwətaʔ, and Skwxwú7mesh Nations of the Coast Salish peoples.
I live and create on the stolen, ancestral, occupied, and traditional lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Səl̓ílwətaʔ, and Skwxwú7mesh Nations of the Coast Salish peoples (Vancouver, BC, Canada). I am of Saxon heritage from eastern and northern Europe. A multi-disciplinary artist before it was a thing; I am a visual and theatre artist, teacher, bartender, traveler, writer, survivor, witch and lifelong student of ceramics and clay. I studied ballet in Russia during Perestroika, received an arts degree in Alaska in 1996, founded Screaming Weenie Productions - Canadas longest running queer mandated arts organization, made pottery in the mountains of Mexico, and created many many plays around the world. My current practice finds local landscape, environment and materials encountering myth, story and history.
Connecting the spirit and body to this land - my work with locally foraged materials and ancient fireing techniques is about placing my own whole self in this adopted home land - All of the parts of me coming together into a body in relation with both human and non-human beings : a body of work, of play, of self. By creating - and openly sharing my process - I am forging a path to physically re-connect with ideas of reciprocity between land, people and spirit. Old systems are eroding, and we are laying down new patterns, like beds of clay on the shifting shores of history. This work is reconnection of community, science, spiritual practice, and the land. By creating with materials everyone has access to, with techniques that anyone can do - outside of capitalistic, colonial and consumptive art practice - I am laying groundwork for change.
The clay of Nex̱wlélex̱wm built the original Vancouver City hall, and was used for the streets of Gastown. The clay was mined from Deep Bay, and the bricks manufactured in Millers Landing before the resort was built. That wonderful clay is still in abundance, and is easily accessible at low tide.
In generations past weather was top of mind if you were a farmer or fisherman - one's livelihood was likely ‘in the weather’. Urban and technological advances took most of us ‘inside’ and we became less concerned with the weather. But now the weather is often the leading story on the news again.
I have created these works with the clay found on Nex̱wlélex̱wm, with bits and bobs washed up on these beaches. How can we find joy and beauty in the world as it is seemingly becoming a wreck before our eyes? But we all can make a choice to create something beautiful and find hope in the pieces of this broken/beautiful world.
Ilena Lee Cramer (She/Them)
https://www.instagram.com/ilenaleecramer
RETURN TO NATURE
By Fleur Sinclair for the Undercurrent
The Hearth Gallery welcomes Bowen artists Guthrie Gloag and Art by Di in their latest collaborative show, Return to Nature (July 16th - August 4th). Through their differing approaches and mediums Di and Gloag work to explore themes of perseverance and environmental impact, in a way that celebrates Bowen’s unique environment and encourages the viewers to interact on a more personal level.
Di utilizes her signature style of bold colours and thick swirling lines to capture familiar Bowen scenes with a new energy and vibrance. Her paintings invite the viewer to recognize and place themselves within her works. Return to Nature takes this a step further by introducing a contest to guess the places depicted in her work for the chance to win of her one of five free prints.
In contrast Gloag takes a more grounded and scientific lens to his work, using his background in biology to create life size sculptures of animals made from driftwood he collects in and around Bowen. Gloag focuses on recreating threatened and endangered species, forcing the viewer to talk among them and consider their place in the natural world.
Together Di and Gloag create an immersive space where viewers can walk among the familiar but reimagined. Viewers can reconnect with nature through vibrant landscapes and sculptural wildlife. In helping that dream Di and Gloag will be donating a portion of all sales to the Bowen Island Conservancy and the Bowen Island Community Foundation, organizations dedicated to protecting the island’s ecological integrity and enhancing community engagement and well-being.
So come and join us at the Hearth Gallery for the artist pARTy, Saturday, July 19th 6 - 9pm for your chance to have a drink, meet the artists and Return to Nature.
