Contemporary Paintings and Drawings
Celebrating Long-Distance Walking in Europe
31 January - 22 February 2020
Catch a glimpse of the opening! Please click on the link below:
https://www.stmatthiasvictoria.ca/news/chapel-gallery-opening-pilgrimages
Tanta DeStaffany Pennington - Artist Statement
I don’t remember learning how to walk nor do I remember learning how to draw but I have spent my life doing both.
Starting in 2008 I have walked three Pilgrimages in France, Spain and Portugal. Time slows down when you are walking day after day. As I move forward I am intrigued and consumed by the changes in visual and physical spaces. The light is constantly shifting and rearranging. Each day is new. The drawings for this Pilgrimage exhibition are playful, whimsical shapes with quirky complex structures. They are abstract emotional maps that connect my internal conversations and memories of the three walks. I call them Dreamscapes.
Artist Biography
Tanta is based in Victoria BC Canada and is a Fine Arts Diploma and Independent Studio Program graduate from the Vancouver Island School of Art. Tanta has exhibited work at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria International Airport, The Victoria Conference Centre, among other local galleries. Tanta has shown internationally, participating in the international 2011 Florence Biennale. Her work is featured in private collections in Western Canada, Hawaii, California, and Italy. Through unconscious acts of painting and drawing Tanta examines a world composed of fragments of geometry, architecture and fantasy. Using a vocabulary of hard-edged cell shapes and ethereal dream like forms she investigates the edges between her internal voices and the real world. Tanta is currently focused on exploring a range of scales and formats including painting, drawing, installation, and sculpture.
Jan Louise Henry - Artist Statement
My introduction to long-distance walking began in 2010, with a walk that covered the final 350 km of the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. I have since completed 3000 km of walks in France and Spain, many of them pilgrimage routes to Santiago.
The pleasures of long-distance walking are numerous. Moving through the countryside at a walking pace, one is able to see and hear things that would otherwise go unnoticed. As a visual artist with a keen interest in colour, one of the things that repeatedly strikes me while walking is the immense variety of colours around me.
Determined to keep a record of the colours that struck me on an 800 km walk in France and Spain in 2017, at the end of each day I made daily watercolour sketches, with accompanying notes for reference. These 43 paintings, one for each day, are a record of the colours of my walk.
Artist Biography
Following years of expatriate life, Jan Louise Henry returned to Canada in 2004. Jan earned a Certificate of Visual Art at Vancouver Island School of Art in 2008. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia.
A number of themes are integral to her art practice. While primarily an abstract painter with a strong interest in colour, Jan also has an interest in the creation of sculptural works using found materials. Two colour theory courses at VISA led to a fascination with colour relationships, something which is central to Jan’s art practice and to the workshops that she teaches.
Representation is provided by the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Art Rental and Sales, and work can also be viewed at www.janhenry.ca.