News

Sidney

Out of the blue came the offer to apply one of my paintings to a Utility Box in Sidney, Vancouver Island. The selected painting is very large and has only been exhibited in Victoria once. However the image presented to the Municipality of Sidney showed the spirit of new growth, and is selected for display.

See below for the image and description.

‘IRIS’
Gillian Redwood

The creation of new growth is a miracle, life springing from the mysterious dark earth, reaching towards light and the sun’s warmth. From a seemingly dormant seed or bulb a dynamic change occurs. This painting is a dedication to the spirit of new growth. Out of the dark springs a strong green shoot, proud leaves. Soon delicate, smokey blue iris flowers will emerge. The grace of creation.


In this painting I explore God-given unseen energies, bringing them into focus with spirals of silver and gold.

More from the new series

As the days pass in March, light brings out the best in Victoria. Little bulbs become green shoots, almond blossom bursts out from the trees and the daylight lasts longer. I am working on preparations for my exhibit opening April 3rd, Easter weekend. Today I picked up the flyers and posters which have been printed with gold foil and look great. They are expensive to print but the same cost as going to the dentist and I’d rather have the gold flyers.

In the studio the paintings for the exhibit are now stretched and ready to go. The exhibit will be open for visitors at the weekends through April and I can also arrange personal visits through the week. It’s fantastic having a show at Xchanges as my studio is right next to the Gallery and I can wander in and out to check on the possibilities of display.

‘The Seagull’ Acrylic on canvas, 44 x 48 inches

This painting is from a sketch at Gonzales beach when the tide was just receding and the warm glow of a setting sun cast pink shadows over the rocks.

The tide retreats leaving eddies and shallow pools where seabirds forage for grubs and skim the water surface searching for food. A Seagull can stir up invertebrates and other small marine life paddling with its feet. Some seabirds use their sense of smell to find food. Around 6pm the light is soft and warm giving a pink glow to the rocks and islands along the shoreline.

I paint with reference to my chalk pastel sketch which contains the basic elements of the scene. Then memory fills in the emotional content, the warmth of the evening, the sounds of the birds as they paddle around and ducks as they quack and dive, the soft pull and push of the waves across the shore.

The snow and after the snow

This morning we have nearly a foot of snow here in James Bay, Victoria. Its beginning to melt which is a shame, wet snow and ice are not so much fun as the new, fluffy, dog-friendly, romp-around kind. It gives everyone a chance to get out and walk while driving looks impossible and I see singles, couples and groups of people out walking the tracks between the drifts. Even in the present dismal political and economic scene it is possible now to get out and have fun.

A painting for the upcoming exhibit titled ‘The Shortest Day’ is taken from a sketch that I’ll include in the show. Artwork that expresses the dark before the light, this piece also holds an element of fun as the raindrops swirl across the canvas and the shadowy red landscape lurks behind.

2. ShortestDay

‘The Shortest Day’ 44 x 48 inches

1. Shortest Day Sketch1

‘The Shortest Day’ Sketch

My art focus rests on the upcoming show, and in the studio yesterday I was stretching a bright and abundant canvas, the ‘light’ part of my exhibit ‘Triumph of Light’. The final stretching of canvas onto frame is exciting. Its usually the first time that I can see the final artwork and while I have been imagining how the where the edges of the canvas will turn over the sides of the stretcher, it is only now that the painting emerges. In my studio ‘The Apple Tree’ was stretched and finished.

The Apple Tree. Stretched

‘The Apple Tree’ stretched in my studio

TheAppleTree.72dpi

‘The Apple Tree’ 44 x 48 inches

New Series

After a year of preparation my new series ‘Triumph of Light’ will open this Spring at Xchanges Gallery on Saturday, April 3rd. This will be a major exhibit with 10 large canvases, each accompanied by the initial pastel sketch which was the inspiration for each piece. In the next few weeks I will be posting a few of these paintings with the accompanying sketch.

Below is ‘Panama Flats’ 44 x 52 inches
Panama Flats Best.St

‘Panama Flats’ Sketch
Panama Flats Sketch

Peace & Joy this Christmas!

I wish everyone a peaceful Christmas holiday, lots of time to relax and keep warm and happy. Thanks to everyone for your support of my artwork this year. Despite the challenging times, it has been a successful year and I’m very grateful for all the good fortune that has come my way.

Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year!

'The First Noël' - Xmas 2020

‘Madonna & Child’ painting by Gillian Redwood

Studio Prints, Paintings & Art Deals

Ready for this weekend I prepared many paintings, prints and special deals.

Orders available online:

High Resolution Prints on Canvas

A Breath of Spring 15 x 14 in
A Breath of Spring

Gonzales Willows.BEST.300dpi
Gonzales Willows

Ocean.Greg.web
Ocean

Rocky Point.GillianRedwood
Rocky Point

Visions of Metchosin Best
Visions of Metchosin

Soleil
Soleil

Ohana for Gage
Ohana

• All paintings have been digitally recorded to exceptional high resolution
• Professional printing by the best art reproduction in Victoria
• Archival inks with UV protection
• Artist personally checks colour match, detail, tonal contrast and the finest print quality
• Choice of a black, white or mirror image around Gallery-wrap
• Canvas stretched with Gallery-wrap on wooden stretcher
• Certificate of Authentication signed by the artist
• Personally wrapped and shipped by the artist

For full information and orders please email:
contact@gillianredwood.com

Available Online…

Orders direct from my studio …

Full details here on Saturday, November 21st ’20.

Bridge Studio Crawl: November 21st & 22nd 2020

This year’s Bridge Studio Crawl will be both online and in-person (in-studio). My new studio will be open from 11am – 4pm on Saturday and Sunday, Nov 21st & 22nd. I’ll have a display of my latest paintings and many discounts available! Xchanges welcomes you to visit and chat with artists in their own studio and see their creative work.

Please take this opportunity to support local artists! Social distancing, one way movement in corridors and other healthy practices will be in place.
These are the venues open:

Screen Shot 2020-11-03 at 1.08.24 PM

Mountain Caribou Story

Sinixt Mountain Caribou Story

Caribou1a

‘Mountain Caribou Story I’ 30H x 40W inches

I heard this story read to a small group of people in the Community Garden in Nakusp. It related the memories of a teenage Sinixt boy in the early 20th Century, traveling with his father and uncles from the USA up to the Columbia Basin Valley near Revelstoke. They came to pan for gold to buy food and provisions for the winter.

The story relates how the young boy wandered through Cottonwood groves hunting game, when suddenly a grouse flew up into the canopy of the trees, and following its’ flight with his gun he was amazed by the sight of hundreds, thousands of caribou antlers banked like arches of a cathedral in the branches of the trees above his head.

In those days, and for perhaps thousands of years, Sinixt hunters had laid hides and blankets on the branches of the cottonwood trees, and in these antler nests they waited for the migrating caribou. This carefully resourced wild food was their winter staple source of protein while salmon from the Columbia River provided for the Spring and Fall.

Many years later, returning from fighting in Europe during WWII the youth, now a grown man wished to return to the area that had held his memories and spirit during the war years. On arriving in the valley in the early 1950s he found no sign of the cottonwood trees or the forest which had been clear cut for extending the farming land in the Columbia River Valley. Locals told of the sale of large bundles of caribou antlers in the local markets, relics of the traditions and hunting culture of the indigenous Sinixt First Nations in the area.

At the time of hearing this story, I was told that the ‘young man’ of the story was now over ninety years old and living in a Sinixt settlement in northern USA.

With the decimation of the caribou by farming and mining interests, herds are now reduced to a mere twenty pairs in the Selkirk mountains. A Caribou Park has been designated for the area, to protect what remains of their old growth habitat.

This project tells the story of this young man’s incredible discovery. The Nakusp Museum produced a DVD of the story told by a Sinixt elder. An audio soundtrack is available.

Caribou2a

‘Mountain Caribou Story II’ 30H x 40W inches

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Historian Eileen Delehanty Pearkes has provided a summary of historical references to the Sinixt people in the area of this park proposal:“The use of the north end of upper Arrow Lake and its surrounding watershed (Trout Lake, Incomappleux River, Lardeau River and north end of Kootenay Lake by Arrow Lakes Indians (Sinixt) is well documented in the ethnographic literature. Several relevent place names confirm the importance of this area to the cultural traditions of this Interior Salish tribe.“nk’mapeleks was a large village somewhere around the head ofBeaton Arm (near the mouth of the Incomappleux River or BeatonCreek). Today, the village site is flooded by the water of the ArrowLakes Reservoir. nk’mapeleks is an ancient term widely anglicized today as Comaplix. The Incomappleux River is a French derivative dating from the Fur Trade. James Teit was told that this village had a large population and was important for fishing, berrying and root-digging.

The Central Selkirk Mountain Caribou herd was estimated at 211 in 1996. By 2002 it was down to 97. The estimate was 89-92 animals. It is more endangered than herds to the north in the Cariboo Mountains and Robson Valley, but less endangered than its immediate neighbours. And it has more habitat left to protect than its neighbours.

Valhalla Wilderness Society
Valhalla Wilderness Society have been champions of BC wildlife conservation since 1975. VWS is a BC wilderness conservation organization specializing in the creation of parks and protected areas for wildlife and ecosystems.
In 2011 they published a 28 page Report full of maps and colour photographs to support the creation of a “Safe Zone’ for the endangered Mountain Caribou.

A population of about 30 endangered mountain caribou, primeval Inland Temperate Rainforest with trees up to 1,800 years old, hundreds of species of lichens, rare plants, core habitat for blue-listed grizzly bears and wolverines, and spawning grounds of the bull trout of Kootenay Lake and the Arrow Lakes Reservoir is all part of the Selkirk Mountain Caribou Park Proposal.

Mountain caribou are endangered because the old-growth forest is endangered. In losing our old-growth, we are also losing other old-growth dependent species. For instance, many species of rainforest lichens in the Central Selkirks are dependent upon old-growth forest.

67% of the Inland Rainforest Region is forest, but only 17% of the region is old-growth forest that is intact (continuous for 1,000 hectares or more). About 16% of the region is in protected areas, but only 4.5% of the region is protected, intact, old-growth forest.

The Valhalla Wilderness Society proposal for a Mountain Caribou protected zone was designed to include rare stands of ancient cedar-hemlock forest such as the upper Incomappleux Valley. Recently, nine lichen species new to science were found there. Scientists are studying another 40 potentially new species.

This park was created to protect the animals however increased tourism, heli-skiing and motorized off-road vehicles have impacted the protected area. VWS is now in consultation with the B.C. Government to increase protection and work alongside tourism operators to further protect the area.

Valhalla Wilderness Society is largely funded by individual donations, plus wilderness conservation and environmental grants.

Union Club Paintings

During my Residency at the Union Club I completed several new paintings. With the restrictions of space and time, I decided to use ready made stretched canvases, smaller than my usual size and easily transportable. With an original pastel sketch in hand each Thursday was a challenge to complete, or nearly complete, a painting in one day. Often I would have to take the painting back to the studio for its final edits and always added the signature flourishes of liquid paint in the safety of my own space.

The results were a more traditional approach to my material, often representing a plein air visit to a favourite venue in and around Victoria.

View from Tower Point1
‘View from Tower Point’ 28 x 36 inches

After the Harvest1
‘After the Harvest’ 28 x 36 inches

Point no Point1
‘Point no Point’ 18 x 24 inches

Poolside1
‘Poolside’ 18 x 24 inches

Light over Gonzales1
‘Light over Gonzales’ 28 x 36 inches