SOUTH DUNDAS – Saturday, August 17, will provide a chance for residents and visitors alike to take in one of the highlights of the summer: the fourth annual South Dundas Art and Studio Tour. Nine exceptional area artists will open their studios to visitors from 10 a.m until 4 p.m., offering a rare opportunity to experience the remarkable level of talent right here in our own community.
All are welcome to come and talk to this year’s featured artists, to see, discuss and purchase their works. Admission is free to all of the studios on the tour.
The artists on the SD 2019 tour are Anne Barkley, Dorothy Adlington, Jan Mills, Elsie Gallinger, Misun Kim-Hunter, Margi Laurin, Gene Ward, Karen Fisher and Marcel Quesnel.
Anne Barkley, whose studio is on Caughnawaga Road, is a noted artist who works in a very unique medium, an oil and cold wax process: texture is a vital aspect of her “somewhat abstract” work. Among her distinctive paintings is a series called Canadian Rhythms, which the artist describes as being based on “Canadian landscapes, but not particular to one place or scene.” Anne also points out that when she works, “I never know for sure what direction a painting will take me.”
Dorothy Adlington has said that “my painting are people, not inanimate landscapes, but living, breathing beings. I am not a portrait artist, but a figure painter.” Her Lakeshore Drive studio is a fascinating place to visit. Dorothy’s favourite medium is acrylics, and she often creates her interpretive works on bigger canvases. “I like to work large. The more you draw a person, the more perspectives you gain.”
Jan Mills, whose studio is outside Williamsburg, loves the abstract qualities in a work of art, responding to the natural world he sees around him. He seeks out the “essence” of a subject through the medium of acrylics. He is also a sculptor, whose striking works are often “collaborations between me and the materials I find around me.” Jan says that as he works, he has to find out “what the sculpture wants to be. Then I leave it alone.”
Artist Elsie Gallinger, whose paintings have been shown in numerous galleries, is an artist noted for her “images of the land,” often painting rural scenes. She cites Tom Thompson of the Group of Seven as one of her influences as she developed her own distinctive artistic style. An artist who paints in oils using a knife, Elsie, whose Lakeshore Drive studio displays many of her framed works, believes that “each picture has a history, and each picture tells a story.”
A teacher who helps others find the artistic path, and an artist herself, Misun Kim-Hunter, whose studio is in Morrisburg, uses a lot of colour in her entrancing works. She likes to make her paintings “graceful, flowing and emotional. When I paint for myself, I paint out of my imagination.” Her style is highly distinctive. In her works, she uses “acrylics, oils and water colours, and her themes range from illustration to animation to abstracts.”
Margi Laurin, has heard her body of wide-ranging works characterized as “eclectic.” She has never allowed herself to be confined to one approach. Among other genres she has worked on murals, some of them displayed in the community. Traditionally, in her Morrisburg studio, Margi paints in acrylics on canvas: but in recent years, she has also extensively explored the artistic possibilities of an iPad, “The stylus gives me pressure sensitivity as I experiment with the colours and texture.” She is also fascinated with the possibilities of typography.
A resident of Iroquois, Gene Ward is a largely self-taught artist, as well as an accomplished musician. He is a both a brush and a knife artist, who often works in the alla prima, or “wet on wet” style. Gene seldom portrays people in his landscapes preferring that “the painting itself must act as a metaphor,” triggering emotions in the observer. Gene strongly feels that any work of art must “engender certain feelings” in a viewer that are very much their own to explore.
Karen Fisher, an artist who will be showing on Lakeshore Drive, loves “making statement pieces.” She has talked of loving “the whole experience of creating,” of finding what works for her artistically. Her medium of choice is acrylics: one of her earliest inspirations was Modigliani. Karen describes her paintings as free and unpredictable, and in a series of works called Back To You, she chose as her subjects “people whose faces you can never see. You must see instead the little nuances like the tilt of a head.” Art, for her, is a passion.
Marcel Quesnel, whose studio is in Morrisburg, says “colour and oils are my means of expression. My paintings have stories and moods.” He only came to painting following his retirement, but has since won a number of awards for his work. He finds that he is intrigued by “beauty, the changing ocean, the sky, the feminine form.” In his works, Marcel employs a unique approach. His brush strokes are “limited to the size of a rice piece, to create lots of detail, a depth of feeling and a changing mood.”
This August 17, don’t miss the opportunity to visit these exciting artists at home in their studios during the 2019 South Dundas Art & Studio Tour.
