TOUCH: Bettina Harvey & Aileen Vantomme
Drawings & Ceramics
A two person exhibition that explores the importance of physical and social connections as a response to recent times of significant disruption.
June 15th to July 4th
ARTist pARTy:
Saturday, June 18th from 6 to 8 pm
Bar & Refreshments with DJ Yeshe
Snug Cove on Bowen Island
Gallery Hours: Open daily 11 - 5 pm (Closed Tuesdays)
Facebook Event: HERE
Enjoy a short virtual tour of this exhibition. Click on the image below.
Bettina Harvey
Drawings
Bettina Harvey’s art is deeply informed by her relationship with the natural world. From her earliest years, Harvey has devoted herself to the outdoors, exploring, studying, and playing in nature. After working on a BFA at Montreal’s Concordia University, she spent years working as a horticulturist and as a gardener for the City of Vancouver, where she applied her visual art skills designing floral displays for major parks. Eventually, she merged her interests, returning to fine arts as a means of investigating ecological systems and their connections to the human world.
Harvey’s most recent work examines the intersections between botany, ecology, and humanity. Working within a metaphorical paradigm, several of Harvey’s series use images of driftwood pieces to interrogate the human lifespan, and the ways in which our complicated journey through time involves struggles with memory, identity, relationships, and love. Her art has been featured in various exhibitions around the Lower Mainland, including the Seymour Art Gallery’s Discovery show, Science World, and Kafka’s on Main. Her work is held in several private collections across North America.
Learn more HERE
Aileen Vantomme
Ceramics
Aileen Vantomme is a ceramicist and printmaker currently residing in Lions Bay, BC. She earned an undergraduate degree in science from McGill University and pursued graduate studies in architecture at Boston Architectural Center. Though largely self-taught, her technique has been augmented with coursework in fine art from various art centres and universities.
Using a simplified palette of colour, texture is created through a tooled manipulation of the stoneware and a layering of glazes to move the vessel and plate form beyond function and become a delicate entity of its own merit. Groupings of pieces highlight the subtle differences of handmade work.
Each ceramic piece is constructed from stoneware and layering of glazes that results in a tactile quality that belies its fragility. Subtle variations are explored when a process is repeated and displayed together. Like the seashell, though empty and discarded, they hold the memory of the process and, in turn, its maker.
Learn More HERE