Nov 2011 –Jan 2012 - Preview

Marion Llewelyn: Snow AsylumBELLEVUE GALLERY, WEST VANCOUVER BC – Oct 13-Nov 12, 2011www.bellevuegallery.caMarion Llewellyn, Unidentified (2011), mixed media on wood [Bellevue Gallery, West Vancouver BC, Oct 13-Nov 12]Marion Llewellyn’s new paintings are alarmingly simple in appearance. Quiet expanses of snow,oblique planes of steel blue, tranquil expanses of mountain, floating feathers – and among them,explosions, eruptions, ominous shadows and speeding arrows.Llewelyn is is known for her explorations of the inner landscape in a manner that is simultaneouslyautobiographical and conceptual. Sixty years later, in Snow Asylum, images of her heritage are emerging:finely sketched medieval goose feather quills and delicately painted references to the ancient fortresses,gates, fences and portcullis still found in Stony Stratford, England where she grew up.Capturing critical psychological moments frame by frame, Llewellyn sets up visual metaphorsfor her own experience with post-traumatic stress disorder. Snow Asylum explores dichotomies. Snowgives a feeling of desolation and camouflage yet can also appear as serene and comforting as ablanket. Arrows may be weapons or signs of good news; mountains may beguile or threaten. Savagetitles like From the Gulag of Bearing Witness, Shock and Awe and Beyond the Wire show the intensity ofthe feelings behind the work. The images are as much about a journey through psychological pain asthey are narratives of place.Marion Llewellyn was born and educated in the United Kingdom and graduated with honoursfrom Manchester College of Art and Design. After working for several prestigious publishing housesand media outlets in England, she emigrated to Canada in 1974 and became a master typographerand seriographer. For almost 20 years she was a partner at Long and Llewellyn, Vancouver, an artand design company with over 300 awards in Canada and USA. Mia JohnsonPhotography during the 1970s, ayoung generation of practitionersturned from traditional forms, likelandscape and street photography,toward a more critical and reflexiveview of the materials they used andthe images they created; Nov 10-Apr1 Sopheap Pich: Compound, sculpturalinstallation is a reflection on thecycle of creation and destruction seenin the recent construction projectsundertaken by Cambodian officialsand commercial interests as thecountry struggles with modernization;Thru Dec 30 Carolee Schneemann:Within and Beyond the Premises, retrospectivepresents Schneemann’scareer from her earliest work to hermost recent investigations, ultimatelyrevealing the artist’s thought process,includes paintings, drawings, photography,installation work, video projectionsand writings; Thru Jan 22Videowatercolors: Carel BalthAmong His Contemporaries, onwatercolour paper or canvas, Balthcombines two or more nearly identicalmoments from a digital video recording,thereby drawing analogiesbetween the constant flow of pixelsand the fluidity of watercolour; ThruFeb 12 MEZZANINE Wolfgang Tillmans,installation of photographs; Thru Feb19 “Test Site: How to Make a OneMinute Sculpture”, centers on ErwinWurm’s humourous and poignantvideo that reveals the artist and othersattempting to create sculptures usingtheir bodies and a range of commonplacethings, their actions stir upthoughts about the sculptural and performativeproperties of the everydayand also spurs viewers to think aboutthe potential for sculpture to be a temporally-bound,instruction-based, orperformance-oriented medium.★ Lisa Harris Gallery1922 Pike Place ✆206-443-3315www.lisaharrisgallery.common-sat 10:30am-5:30pm sun 11am-4pm, first thurs Nov & Dec. Nov 3-27Kent Lovelace, “Peregrinations”, newlandscape paintings that are lessabout ‘scenic’ places and more abouta narrative and sensory experience forthe viewer; Dec 1-Jan 15 Lois Silver,“The Color of Drama”, lushly renderedcolour, bright light, and a quirkysense of perspective on domestic life;78 PREVIEW ■ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER/JANUARY 2011/12★ OPEN LATE ON FIRST THURSDAYS