Scroll down to view this digital gallery. Click on artwork images to see an enlarged or complete view of the piece.
PoMoArts Gallery is open daily for in-person visits and artwork is available for purchase over the phone or in person. See PoMoArts website for Gallery hours and our Communicable Disease Prevention Plan.
PaperScapes
Dorothy Doherty | Ellen Pelto
Jane McDougall | Olga Campbell
PaperScapes features the work of four artists who work in similar ways, incorporating paper, paint, and other materials to create mixed media artworks on canvas and cradled panels. The artists met in a workshop where they were exposed to new methods of working with discarded paper and paint. In the ensuing years, new expressions evolved, as each artist explored the dynamics between these materials, to produce work in their own unique style and aesthetic.
Each piece of art is a journey of discovery. Using techniques of layering, collage, mark making, scraping, sanding, adding and subtracting, the resulting pieces have a sense of history and mystery, achieved through the process of concealing and revealing multiple layers of Information and material. This methodology became the starting point for a new body of work with a distinctive aesthetic. Some images are political. Others deal with the surface, and others incorporate materials such as plaster, metal, and oil bar. To this end, the artworks in this exhibition include early works, as well as new work inspired by experimentation, time, and change. PaperScapes highlights the diversity of outcomes possible from a similar approach with similar materials.
Biography
Dorothy Doherty received her formal art education from Vancouver School of Art (Emily Carr University of Art & Design) and Capilano University. She also holds an MA in History in Art (University of Victoria, 1984-1993) and a PDP (Simon Fraser University, 1995). She supplements her formal education with courses and workshops in a variety of media.
Dorothy was born in Vancouver, BC, and spent her formative years in the Vancouver area. After graduation from art school, she lived more than 20 years in various parts of BC, working and teaching ceramics in Victoria, Williams Lake, Cranbrook, the Kootenays and other parts of the BC Interior. During this time, she worked extensively with local potters guilds, and taught credit courses for Cariboo College (now Thompson Rivers University). After completing a Masters Degree (Art History) and PDP (Professional Development Program), Dorothy was employed as an art specialist and civilizations instructor for school district #44 (North Vancouver). On retirement she attended the Studio Art program at Capilano University to upgrade her skills, learn how art has changed over the years, and discover where she fits in to the current art scene.
Dorothy exhibits regularly in group and solo shows. She lives in Burnaby, BC, paints at Portside Studios in Vancouver, and works with ceramics at the Shadbolt Art Centre in Burnaby, BC.
Dorothy is interested in the environment and the effect humans have on the earth. Through her art practice, she hopes to express her feelings and concerns about the world today, along with her appreciation of the beauty of life on this planet.
I love the process of discovery. I enjoy layering papers to panel, then sanding and scraping the layers to discover a new aesthetic beneath. It’s an unpredictable, interesting process. It’s like being a miner, or a scientist, or an archaeologist all at once during the process of making art.
I see the world as one enormous source of ideas and inspiration. I am interested in how the world works, how humans interact, how our wilderness is shrinking with the growth of cities, and the resulting outfall of these conditions.
I feel at ease with most media, and continue to explore new ways to develop the artistic form. I paint, draw, sculpt, and make prints and ceramics. It is important for me to honor the materials I work with, reveal my process, and create artwork that stimulates the imagination and moves the soul.
Abstraction provides such an opportunity. It acts as a connecting force, permits a dialogue between the observer and the canvas, and invites new ways of thinking. I work in layers and deal with the barely visible –a feeling or glimpse of what was once there, or of what may be. I seek the evasive – the imperceptible – in an attempt to grasp where we are going as a culture.
Biography
Ellen Pelto is an abstract painter who works in acrylics, oils and cold wax medium. Her work balances complexity of surface with succinctness and simplicity.
Her approach to painting is spontaneous and intuitive. She applies multiple layers of paint and paper and continues to manipulate the surface to reveal visual depth and texture. Her focus is on neutral colors, surface, texture, and mark making.
For the past 30 years she has balanced a busy professional career with creating art. She discovered the joy of clay and ceramics before transitioning to painting. She studied visual arts at the University of Victoria and has subsequently taken many courses and workshops with many renowned artists.
I enjoy this serendipitous process that is full of surprise, wonder and discovery. It is an organic “living” process of acting/application, reacting (stopping, looking and finding) and repeating. The process is full of both happy surprises and challenging blunders, I endeavour to create happy surprises and problem-solve the blunders. I appreciate the quiet process applying paper and paint in layers and responding to visual triggers as they emerge, using a wide range of response options such as painting, distressing, scoring, scraping, mark making, adding and subtracting more paper and paint.
The abstract mixed media works in this exhibit are inspired by my curiosity and interest in exploring how the properties of various types of paper respond to assorted mediums. Each piece is an exploration, a journey between, beneath and through the layers. Through scraping and layering of paper and paint combined with spontaneous and intuitive reactions, the paintings emerge as objects in their own right. The work in this exhibit is influenced by my love of the ocean and the beach near my home on Vancouver Island and informed by the paper and paint techniques introduced to me by Michael Shemchuk. The neutral palette and the properties of the various papers are the common elements in each of these abstract mixed media pieces.
Throughout my professional career as a curriculum designer for post-secondary institutions I have been fascinated by the process of bringing together various complex elements, whether it be ideas, text, paint, or now various mediums. I discovered the joy of clay and ceramics before transitioning to painting. I studied Visual Arts at the University of Victoria. Over the past decade I have attended a variety of courses and workshops that have brought me to abstract mixed media and this exhibition.
________
Jane McDougall
Biography
Jane McDougall graduated from ECUAD in 1991. After working for years as a potter on Granville Island, Jane now works from her backyard studio in Kitsilano. Jane’s artistic style stems directly from her curious and free-spirited personality. She is inspired by the outdoors and spends her time exploring local forests and beaches and skiing at Whistler. Jane is guided intuitively by her materials. This is evident in Jane’s textures and colours, which she achieves by successive layering, painting and sanding. Viewers of her art see Jane’s process and are taken along on her creative journey.
At Shemchuk's workshop we learnt a process that includes colour, gluing paper, followed by sanding and tearing away the layers. This takes an incredible amount of bravery. We spent hours perfecting one idea, then to bury it with another layer of paper. This path of discovery is not for the faint of heart. You can't be precious. You have to move forward with dramatic gestures.
This mountain landscape series is a new direction for me. I am primarily an abstract painter. I spend a lot of time in the coastal mountains of British Columbia, skiing in the winter and hiking and walking in the summer. This series combines my physical life with my studio time. Inspired by personal and meaningful locations these paintings are free of realistic landscapes.
I start by loosely painting large pieces of craft paper. Then I rip them into shapes, I make mountains out of them. I love the physical experience of tearing the paper. It is carefree and unsentimental. I want to feel the mountain shapes. Matisse and his late stage cutouts are a huge influence on me. Matisse found tremendous joy in cutting large pieces of coloured paper into shapes. Once I have these mountains I lay them out and move them around, like a giant. Remembered views serve as a point of departure. I attach the paper to the surface, then I sand them into a distressed surface. The experience of all these big movements really relate to my outdoor life.
________
Biography
Olga Campbell is a visual artist and writer. She creates art because the process allows her to connect with something greater than herself resulting in a feeling of dipping into magic. In addition to having multiple solo and group shows for the past twenty-five years, she has written two books, “Graffiti Alphabet” and “A Whisper Across Time”, her family’s story of the Holocaust told through art and poetry, which has won four awards. Olga first discovered her passion for art at Emily Carr School of Art and Design almost thirty years ago. She works in multiple mediums: photography, sculpture, mixed media and digital photo collage. She is drawn to alternative processes and uses layering in much of her work. The alternative process takes an art piece and transforms it into something else entirely, some other reality. The multiple layers add a sense of history and mystery, things hidden, concealed, revealed.
Going to this workshop was a 5-day adventure in the creative process. We layered, took away, then covered up again and revealed. Throughout this art making process at every turn there were elements of surprise and discovery. It was fast, it was intuitive and it was a lot of fun.
I create art because the process allows me to connect with something greater than myself and I feel as if I am dipping into magic.
I first discovered my passion for art when I went to Emily Carr School of Art and Design in 1987. I was a mature student at the time and had only taken a couple of art courses prior to that. On my first day at Emily Carr I had an overwhelming feeling of coming home. I was where I was meant to be.
Over the next few years I proceeded to take as many introductory courses as I could: sculpture, drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics, photography, computers and more. My interest in working in many mediums continues to this day.
I now work in mixed media, ceramic sculpture, photography and digital photo collage. I am drawn to alternative processes and use layering in my work. The alternative process takes an art piece and transforms it into something else entirely, some other reality. The multiple layers add a sense of history and mystery, things hidden, concealed, revealed. I continue to take workshops periodically to learn new techniques and for inspiration.
________
PaperScapes has been presented as a hybrid of a live exhibition installed in the gallery and a digital exhibition. An in-person Exhibition Reception was held with the artists on May 12, 2022. PoMoArts Gallery is open daily for in-person visits. See PoMoArts.ca for Gallery hours
Support our local arts community
When you purchase artwork from PoMoArts (Port Moody Arts Centre Society) you are supporting local artists and a small portion will also go towards our gallery and programming initiatives. For more information about the artists please see their profiles on the Artist Directory.