COLBORNE — From containers to watercraft, each artist at the Colborne Art Gallery had a different interpretation of the word ‘vessel’.
Colborne Art Gallery’s annual themed show, Vessels, opens Jan. 25, said gallery spokeswoman Barbara Buntin. Each year gallery members are asked to create work based on a theme and artists respond using a variety of materials and interpretations, said Ms. Buntin.
COLBORNE — Judith Kreps Hawkins' piece Ovum is part of the Colborne Art Gallery's annual themed show, Vessels, which opens Jan. 25. January 17, 2014. (Karen Longwell / Northumberland News)
Member artist Pat Stanley interpreted vessels as containers and ships. Ms. Stanley worked on a series of paintings that depict various colourful nebulae in the sky, combined with very earth-bound images of expressways, cars, and trucks. The vehicles are containers, of our bodies, our belongings, our merchandise, all of our gravity-shackled finite lives, she said.
Ceramic artists call all clay pots vessels and functional potters can devote whole careers to developing nuanced forms of exquisite beauty as gallery members Terrie MacDonald and Susan McDonald have done, said Ms. Buntin.
For her own contribution, Ms. Buntin chose to focus on the vessel as watercraft, using the iconic image of a canoe as a means to navigate over the water’s surface as well as through imagination, she said.
“The shape of the canoe is a simple, beautiful container and provides a means to skim along the water and travel to remote and peaceful corners,” she said.
Another member, Judith Kreps Hawkins, said her work suggests double, difficult entendres — putting one type of vessel within another.
Vessels opens at the Colborne Art Gallery, 51 King St., Colborne on Jan. 25 with an opening reception from 2 to 4 p.m. with artists present. The show continues through March 2. Admission is free. Gallery hours are Saturday and Sunday noon to 4 p.m.
For more information visit, www.thecolborneartgallery.ca.