22 July – 21 October 2025
GVPL Emily Carr Branch
3521 Blanshard St #101, Victoria, BC
MTWFS 10am-6pm / Th 10am-7pm
About the Artist:
I was brought up in a family of artists and have been involved in visual arts from a young age.Â
I took classes at the Vancouver School of Art as a teenager and spent a summer at the Banff School of Fine Arts while in high school.
I specialized in Art Education while doing my Bachelor of Education at UVIC. I also have a Masters of Education from the University of Oregon specializing in Curriculum (Community Education). I was awarded Pacific Northwest Art Educator of the year by the National Art Education Association (US) and was involved in the British Columbia Art Teachers’ Association.
I started teaching when I was 22, barely 4 years older than my Grade 12 students. I was involved in Curriculum Development for the Ministry of Education. I spent 30 years in the classroom, mostly teaching high school students and later spent time teaching at UVIC in the Art Education department. I have taught art to all grades from K – Fifth Year university in both public and independent schools as well as fellow teachers and adults in the community. My specialty is 2D: Painting, Drawing and Printmaking. I love all three!
I explore different themes in my work. Some examples are: tea bowls, quirky houses, birds, folk art, Chinese lanterns and objects from nature. However I seem to return to the theme of still life as my main interest. I invent still lifes with objects, vases, flowers and tabletops that are full of layered colours and patterns. I use stamping and repetitious marks to create patterns and then overpaint around and over them to create complexity. Recently I have been playing with perspective, making the tabletops and objects impossible and offbeat.
I paint in acrylics and their enjoy vibrant colour and their fast drying time which makes layering possible. I often add gold leaf to my paintings as a finishing touch.
I have shown my work in galleries, hotels and art centres in Victoria and elsewhere on Vancouver Island. I usually participate in the Oak Bay Studio Tour. I am involved in the Arts Alive committee for the District of Oak Bay and have painted pianos for the summer piano project.
I also have a line of greeting cards found in galleries and bookstores, @Colourways_art.
I have found that the arts bring people together in positive and creative ways and hope you agree!
To contact me please call me at 250 598 1329 or email at jnmci@shaw.ca.
About the Work:
The paintings in this show are a collection of still life paintings produced over the last decade.
The objects and patterns in the paintings are imagined and invented. Occasionally I use photographs as references, but rarely.
I am attracted to bright, vibrant colours. I enjoy using contrast of colour and colour limits in my work. I am not an intuitive, emotionally driven painter, instead elements of design, pattern, repetition, perspective and tone interest me. Each painting is a result of a series of design decisions that eventually lead to a pleasing, interesting and sometimes perplexing result.
This is especially true of my recent work where I play with perspective by tipping tabletops, breaking the rules of perspective and creating impossible visual situations.
