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Porteous, a former set and costume designer, also contributed two pieces to the exhibition, both of which were part of an experiment with a more abstract style that he calls Primary Entanglement. He said he wanted to reflect the chaos and confusion as the COVID-19 pandemic began to set in last March and new restrictions were being announced almost every day.
“I’m known for my scenic background (painting), so to do an abstract like Entanglement was a new adventure,” Porteous said.
In some cases, Porteous’ call-out for pandemic creations from local artists actually inspired new work, like that of water-colour artist Lisa Planke, entitled Blue.
And in other cases, the pandemic saw artists return to their roots to sharpen some of those basic skills that form the foundation of their work, and then expand out from those roots to create something totally unique.
“During COVID, I decided that I wanted to turn from painting and go back to my basics and work on my illustration work,” said artist and gallery assistant Sylvie Verwaayen, speaking to her featured piece entitled Portrait Study.
“For this portrait, I created the face, skin and top in the wax and oil pencils. Then I sprayed it with a fixative and then finished the background and hair with acrylic paint. My theory was that if the fixative did it’s work and sealed the artwork, then the acrylic would not be resisted being on top of oil and wax. It worked well. Now I have options for filling in large area, like backgrounds in a composition using paint, which takes less time and is relatively cheaper than wax and oil pencils.”
To view the exhibition in its entirety, visit stmarysstationgallery.ca/covision-2021.
