The Duthie Gallery has a new naturally-leavened wood-fired addition – Francis Bread & Cafe – located in the gallery and offering the MOST delicious sour dough breads and baguettes and other baked treats and coffees & teas – during the summer from Friday to Monday. Paintings and prints continue to be shown in the gallery, currently a selection of woodblock and linocut prints by Celia Duthie. Paintings by Susan Benson in June and Josephine Fletcher in July.

The sculpture park continues to exhibit works by David Robinson, Michael Dennis, Bev Petow, Michael Robb and other artists from on and off island. New works will be installed in the spring for the annual gala opening – Saturday June 29.

David Robinson – new installation at The Gordon and Leslie Diamond Healthcare Centre in Vancouver.

Kinetic, activated by the light.

Awesome!!

Please join us for the opening for ‘Paintings of Salt Spring’ by Josephine Fletcher.

Saturday September 1, 2018 – 5 – 7pm

Josephine Fletcher grew up on Hornby Island, amidst a dedicated enclave of artists. Encouraged by her family and Jack Shadbolt and other painters of the Hornby set, she attended the Banff School of Fine Art, continued on to 4 years at the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver and has been painting seriously and full time for more  then 40 years. Josephine has had numerous solo shows and participated in group shows in Vancouver, Hornby and Vancouver Island and is in many private collections.

Distinctive, strong and ’painterly‘ Josephine’s work particularly shows her enthusiasm for and mastery of colour. Her landscapes are in the tradition of the transcendentalists (ie Lauren Harris), reflecting her abiding love of nature. Her travels have inspired her and artists from the Fauves to Pierre Soulages have been influences.

Josephine lives on Salt Spring Island with her son, Nicholas. 

Please join us Saturday, June 9th for the opening reception for ‘It Will Never Rain Roses’

new oil paintings by Florence Roberge.

5 – 7 at the Duthie Gallery

Show continues through June 25

The title of the show comes from George Elliott:

“It will never rain roses.  When we want to have more roses, we must plant more trees.”

Artist Statement

“My latest show began with my amazing Ted bringing me several buckets of red roses hoping  that some portable inspiration would entice me to accompany him on a work trip to a boring place.   I became obsessed with these large, very long-stemmed, blood-red  roses and I remain so.  I have made over 100 small watercolour paintings of them.  Now immersed in painting these roses in oil (my favourite medium), I am even more in love with them.   I find them most alluring when they are dead and desiccated.  They mature from scarlet to ruby to violet with gilt and  finally to lacy edges of velvet black.   Sometimes all of these and many more colours in one wrinkly petal.

I think that all art made with truth and passion is a self-portrait, however obscure the references may be to the viewer.  Blood-red roses have signified  passion and abiding love, courage, power, respect and many many other emotions from recorded time.   They seem a perfect  vessel to contain what I am thinking and feeling at this time of my life.

To my eye, there is infinitely more life in these roses when they are dead than when they are fresh.

‘Steamroller Prints’ – April 13, 14,& 15 at Mahon Hall.

4’ x 8’ woodcuts, carved on 4’ x 8’ plywood, printed by steamroller.

18 prominent printmakers. A heart-stopping breath-taking exhibition.

Background – 

The summer of 2016 saw Vancouver-based artists and the public alike engaged in a unique event: printmaking huge woodblocks using a full-size steamroller as a press. The first big print event took place on Granville Island. Twelve artists carved 4’ x 8’ sheets of plywood,  blocks were inked and printed by steamroller…not once, but four times each. 

The team of participating artists included Mariko Ando, Ben Duncan, Bobbie Burgers, Leonard Brett, Taiga Chiba, Ian Forbes, Saskia Jetten, Barbara Klunder, Arnold Shives, Kelly Shpeley, Tracey Tarling and Richard Tetrault. 

Big Print Chinatown brought together another team of artists and printmakers, carving and printing another dramatic series of 4 ft X 8 ft woodcuts – focused on the richness of Vancouver’s Chinese and Aboriginal cultures – and printing them by steamroller at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Plaza.

Artists in this series include Corey Bulpitt, Haisla Collins, Kee Toy Joseph, Jeanette Lee, Sharifah Marsden, Gerald Pedros, Susan Point, Connie Sabo, Jerry Whitehead, Sylvia Wong and June Yun.  

Masterminds of the projects:  Esther Rausenberg and Richard Tetrault of Creative Cultural Collaborations Society. www.creativeculturalcollaborations.com

The Steamroller exhibition includes prints from these two events.

Here are links to videos of the printing events.