31 October 2024 – 21 January 2025
GVPL Emily Carr Branch
3521 Blanshard St #101, Victoria, BC
MTWFS 10am-6pm / Th 10am-7pm
About the Artist:
Shelley is a lifetime artschool dabbler, having completed courses in photography, sculpture, life drawing and painting. She is a former music teacher and sings in a classical choir in Victoria, BC. She first called herself an artist in 2018 when she embarked on her original series: “Unreal Birds”, which are beautifully outrageous bird-like portraits inspired by chickens. Since 2018, disciplined practice and free play in the studio, along with focused study have led her towards abstracted nature paintings that have a tinge of reality, intense colour, and whimsy mixed with sadness.
Is there beauty in a melting polar mountain, or flowers just a bit beyond their prime? Shelley says yes, definitely. Beauty mixed with sadness is how life often is. Her imagined landscapes and expiring flowers are joyful, colourful and textured; and moody but hopeful.
Shelley is inspired by street art, nature, the birds in her own back yard, and by simple things like the colour of a stormy sky or the droop of a tulip.
The past two years have been very busy for Shelley, having been involved in numerous shows in 2023 and 2024 along with winning three Jurors choice awards in that time. Her work was recently hung at BC’s Government House, and she has upcoming shows at the Gallery Splash! (September), and the Fairmont Empress Hotel (December).
AWARDS:
Saanich Peninsula Arts and Crafts Society – A Bath Walk – Jurors Choice 2023
Saanich Peninsula Arts and Crafts Society – Riff on a Thomson Pine – Jurors Choice 2024
Saanich Peninsula Arts and Crafts Society – Polar Melt – Jurors Choice 2024
Artist Statement:
Historically, paintings were an important method of documenting life. Landscape paintings served as the backdrop to religious and mythical stories and scenes of life.
In the late 19th century, cameras became accessible and prevalent; and this was a major factor in the unleashing of landscape painters. Painters began to paint their impressions of landscapes, expressively, with movement and with colour and without concern for realism.
Imagined Landscapes
I am grateful to those who have come before me, who have given me so much to learn from, and for the freedom to plunge into the world of imagined landscapes. When I am in the zone, I work quickly with fast drying acrylic paints, pastels and sometimes collage, sometimes a dab of oil stick here and there. I am a bit messy, but always very free.
I have really delved into the world of Imagined Landscapes, where boundaries of reality are blurred and nature’s essence is reimagined. I love a tree that couldn’t possibly exist, oran impossibly coloured sky. I love to exaggerate what is already there, or to express my imagination.
Through my art I hope to draw attention to the beauty around us and evoke a sense of wonder and respect for our planet. Our Ice is melting, mountains are crying, trees are bending under the force of climate change. We are hot and dry, or covered by a deluge of rain, yet our landscape, our life force, remains a source of hope and beauty.
Through my paintings, I hope to inspire a sense of connection to the environment while celebrating the power of imagination.
http://shelleyhordiyuk.com
Email: shordiyu@shaw.ca
Insta: ShelleyHordiArt
