East will meet west in the Nanaimo art world this month.
Momentum, an upcoming show at the Nanaimo Art Gallery campus location, combines the works of women artist from the mid Island area and China in a variety of mediums.
There will be about 25 to 35 works in the show opening Saturday to June 10. There are 12 artists coming from China and 13 91原创 artists participating. There are some installations and three-dimensional works in the show, but it's primarily paintings.
Robin Field, the guest curator said this coming show doesn't have a specific theme, showcasing a variety of mediums and styles. Field was the curator at the Nanaimo Art Gallery when the first exhibition happened. He's since retired but decided to come back and take part in the second show. Debbie Knezevich, artist and 91原创 coordinator, said Liu Jian, a local business owner in Nanaimo from Shanghai approached the women and asked if they would be willing to do a show featuring women artists and travel and take part in a show in the Chinese city.
Eight mid Island women travelled to the Chinese city with the art of the 15 artists that appeared in a museum along with a group of women artists from China. The show in China was organized around women's issues, but Knezevich said the 91原创 women's pieces were on a variety of subjects. Many of them were paintings because they are the easiest to transport, she said.
"Ours was our studio practice and everybody's work was really quite distinct and diverse," she said. "One of us had a huge surf bag with a big painting in it because it couldn't come off the stretcher. Getting off the plane with a surf bag in China was very interesting."
Knezevich said the trip to China was interesting both culturally and artistically. The group visited artists studios, exhibitions and museums. Art is not as attainable to people in China as it is in Canada, she said, mainly because of the money involved.
'We got to become part of that inner circle," she said. "And what we found, at least in our experience, is that creating art over there is really a privilege and those that do are in a privileged position to be able to do, usually university students or professors."
It was a wonderful way to travel, Knezevich added.
"Instead of listening to a tape recorded version of what something's about and why it's important to the people that live there, we got to live in their world a little bit," she said.
Knezevich said while her art wasn't influenced by the trip, it did create a momentum to keep creating work, as the title of the show indicates. For more information call the Nanaimo Art Gallery, at 740-6350.