Coming from away, I unpack my paint box to interpret the Canadian landscape from a different perspective. I tame the wilderness and make my gardens wild. With a bird’s eye view of the new, yet old earth around me, I challenge the Canadian Shield and honour the St. Lawrence Lowlands. It is an immigrant immersion. I learn the land and present its messages. The abstracted landscape lets me step into it gently, then build, with my brushstrokes, this new embrace to a release. I paint my way into a new space that does not contain me. It allows me to feel an unfamiliar freedom and, at the same time, to be myself.
My focus is on chromatic lyricism. My paintings, with their exuberance and wild colours, develop and evolve as an intuitive reaction to my beautiful surroundings, whether as close as the garden or farther throughout the region. The resulting work is an interplay of my memories and my present, as I bring together the ethereal and the physicality of the land around me. Perhaps this distillation of nostalgia helps me to understand the here and now.
What I wish to present is my journey. While ostensibly based on the dynamic visual forces of nature, landscape and surroundings, these lyrical works are as much a landscape of my inner emotions, memories and history. I want my paintings to pulse with life and reveal a marriage of my cultural connections and ideas of aesthetics. This work allows me to consider the space between seen and unseen, which takes root in one’s senses and memory. I aim for the beauty and drama of evocative abstract painting within an ongoing exploration of what can be achieved in paint. I try to push the relation between form and colour to create a visual sensation of energy, emotion, and reality: epiphany.
Yangyang’s ‘Ephiphany’ solo exhibition at the Elora Centre for the Arts recently included captured the energy flow and the senses, and the fusion of eastern and western traditions. She grew up in China, where she got her art education. While much of her influence comes from Chinese culture and arts, she is also influenced by western abstract expressionism painters like Willem De Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Philip Guston and Cy Twombly, among others. Her work reflects the blend of ideas between east and west, and is emblematic of the global nature of art.
We are currently featuring the work of Yangyang Pan at the Elora Mill Hotel & Spa. The pieces you see in her virtual gallery below are part of that exhibition, and are available for purchase.
I’m Callie Gray, an award winning international artist, and I create vibrantly colorful canvases.
I am fascinated in art as a language that bridges the physical and spiritual worlds. Through mindfulness, as I paint, I am able to connect to a deeper source within me, which is both healing and transcendent. It allows me to use spontaneous mark making and paint intuitively. Through this process I find greater understanding of myself and experience a unique connection to the world around me. And if it connects with someone and gives them joy then I have done my job.
Callie Gray’s work was recently featured in the main gallery at the Elora Centre for the Arts, in her solo show entitled ‘Everything in its right place’. The work showcased in exhibition is featured her on her virtual gallery page. For more information about her in-person gallery exhibition, please click here.
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”– Leonardo Da Vinci
My aim is to …Go Deep rather than Wide
…explore a few things thoroughly rather than many things superficially
…use simplicity and constraint
and find elegant solution to complex problems.
“You are not separate from nature. We are all part of the One life that manifests itself in countless forms throughout the universe, forms that are completely interconnected. When you recognize the sacredness, the beauty, the incredible stillness and dignity in which a flower or a tree exists, you add something to the flower or the tree. Through your recognition, your awareness, nature to comes to know itself. It comes to know it’s own beauty and sacredness through you! – Eckhart Tolle.
Prices are in Canadian dollars and do not include shipping costs. Prices are subject to an additional 13% HST.
Laurie’s contemporary, process driven painting is largely inspired by the interactions of colour, shape and application. She was born in Toronto and studied fine art at the University of Waterloo. Her work is displayed in galleries throughout Ontario and she has been an active member of the art community for over twenty years, regularly participating in shows such as the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair and International Affordable Art Fairs with Spence Gallery. Laurie’s work is included in private and public collections across North America, Europe and Asia. She works from her studio in Guelph Ontario.
Laurie teaches sessions at the Guelph School of Art, Elora Centre for the Arts, The Hive in Alton Mills and a week long intensive workshop during the summer at the Wellington County Museum. She offers private and semi-private classes in her studio. The focus is on building a visual vocabulary of tools and techniques while further establishing each participant’s unique voice.
“Shape, colour, line, materiality of paint and the myriad ways that they can interact are the jumping off points for my painting explorations. I truly think of painting as a dedicated practice, one that I must return to as often as possible to feed my artistic curiosity and my soul. Endless fascination and dedication to remaining present in each moment fuel my quest to express what is, at first, intangible.”
Laurie held a solo exhibition at the Elora Centre for the Arts in 2019 entitled ‘Journey Into Process’ and was also featured in a group show in 2018 called ‘Gesture & Geometry’ in our gallery.
Prices are in Canadian dollars and do not include shipping costs. Prices are subject to an additional 13% HST.
“My paintings are an inventory of experiences felt by my deep connection to the lands and waters of Southern Ontario. I’m inspired by raging lakes & rivers, dramatic skies, wide open fields and bewildering cloud formations.
My work always begins from an abstract expressionist perspective, sometimes remaining in that form, sometimes moving into impressionism. It is my hope that the viewer will feel compelled by the paintings, experience a place of contemplation, a sense of wonder, and hopefully a connection with my art.”
Carolyn was part of a group show at the Elora Centre for the Arts entitled ‘H20 for Good: 3 Artists | 3 Walls | 1 Planet. She is also part of the annual Elora Fergus Studio Tour Gallery Show & Sale held in our gallery every year.
Prices are in Canadian dollars and do not include shipping costs. Prices are subject to an additional 13% HST.
Rachel holds a degree in Studio Art and Art History from the University of Guelph. Her painting is an intuitive process; multiple layers are covered and revealed until they culminate in a cohesive piece that testifies to this process. Her work has a sense of the artist’s presence through gestural marks and sometimes a heavy scraping back of layers. The use of palette knives creates a sense of rawness and roughness- a loss of control that invites an element of chance into the work. Her aim is to create paintings that facilitate a sense of hope and inspiration to her viewers.
Rachel is one of our featured artists on display at the Elora Mill Hotel & Spa, she has had several pieces in our Artisan Shop at ECFTA. In addition she is one of the curated artists in the annual Elora Fergus Studio Tour show and sale in our main gallery, and has her work featured in several galleries in Toronto and across the GTA.
My Recent Work
How does a painting make you feel?
“Does it bring you back to a certain memory or place? My latest works aim to do exactly that. Through a combination of colours and textures, I want the FEELING of the painting to speak to you. I want it to surround you and transport you back to that place… that time that you were in complete peace, or refreshment, or excitement. Abstract paintings have the power to speak beyond words and images, transcending the rational mind and triggering the heart. I want these paintings to recreate that memory and the intrinsic emotions for you whenever you experience them.”
Prices are in Canadian dollars and do not include shipping costs. Prices are subject to an additional 13% HST.
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