We are excited to announce the return to in-person exhibitions to the Slide Room Gallery. The first exhibition will be an Art Show & Sale fundraiser in the new gallery space. All work will be available for purchase at the VISA Open House on September 11, 4-7pm. Prices range from $50-$300.
In October, we are pleased to present recent work by Jeroen Witvliet.
The opening is Saturday October 3, 1-4pm
(Artist talk at 2pm)
Architecture, urban landscape and personal history intersect in my art practice. I explore theidea of home in my paintings and the built environment in the sculptures that I construct. Ineach series, I endeavor to consider the spaces we inhabit and how we move through themphysically and emotionally.In my paintings, wooden supports in the shape of a house are beguilingly simple but the subjectof home is complex. What does it mean to have a home? A prison or a refuge? A place ofbelonging or no more than a suitcase; it is a physical space but also an emotional landscapeinextricably bound with memory. Domestic objects – a chair, a lamp, a coffee cup, stand in ascharacters in these abstracted interiors that combine color and fragments of text to create openended narratives.My sculptural work then expands from personal spaces into the urban/industrial landscape.Using found/salvaged materials like wood, cardboard and plastic I respond to their materiality tobuild structures and installations that reflect the rapid expansion of cities and their resultingcast-offs. Left in piles by the roadside or in dumpsters they call out to be turned into somethingmore. Reimagined, they retain their history while becoming something entirely different.
Doctor Appointment, acrylic on board, 25 x 31 x 2cm, 2019
Late Night, acrylic on board, 21 x 32 x 2cm, 2019
I Could Live There (Left) Lucky (Right) 4×8 ft. Each 2019 City of Victoria Commission
Paper Tigers (Left) All Flies, Flies and Goes (Right) 4×8 ft each 2019 City of Victoria Commission
Creep In A Tee-Shirt, cardboard, acrylic paint, paper mache and thread, 40 x 120 x 38 cm, 2019
Force Majeure, plastic with tape, tempera paint on wall (installation view), size variable, 2019
Government Street, charcoal on cardboard, 182 x 91 cm
Return Ticket, acrylic, spray paint and collage on board, 25 x 45 x 2cm, 2019
Fern Long is a contemporary artist living and working in Victoria, BC. She is a member of BOXCARSIX artist collective and a Diploma of Fine Art graduate from Vancouver Island School of Art (June 2018). Architecture, urban landscape and personal history intersect in Fern’s art practice. Moving between painting, drawing and sculpture she builds structures that explore the spaces we inhabit and how we move thru them both physically and emotionally.
Follow Fern on Instagram and her Website
Thank you for viewing this digital exhibition by Fern Long. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Please stay tuned for new exhibitions coming soon.
©Fern Long. Courtesy of the artist.
The Slide Room Gallery is very excited to start our season of virtual exhibitions with Mary Babineau, a very talented local artist who is also a graduate of the Diploma of Fine Arts of Vancouver Island School of Art.
Thank you Mary for opening this new chapter in our gallery.
For more information on Mary visit her website https://marytbabineau.com/
Land of Opportunity, oil, pastel and pencil on canvas, 59.5”x78”, 2018
Turn, oil on canvas, 36”x48”, 2019
North End Night, oil on canvas, 36”x48”, 2018
Driveway In, pencil and oil pastel with collage on wood cradle, 11”x14”, 2018
Guardians, oil and pastel on canvas, 78”x54”, 2018
The Barmaid’s Stray, oil on wood cradle, 18”x24”, 2019
Scones & Fashion, oil on canvas, 48”x36”, 2019
Under Renovation, gouache and mixed media on canvas, 48”x36”, 2018
Today’s Complaint, oil and pastel on canvas, 78”x54”, 2018
Shopping the River Styx, oil, pastel and pencil on canvas, 32”x60”, 2019
Drawings from series, Residue of Promise, mixed media with collage on paper, 2018
Snow Day, from L A Y E R show, re-purposed materials and plaster of Paris, 2019
My work is about where I go and what I’m going through. Paintings express my experience of urban environment, physical state and response to situation.
Process directs how I think through a painting. Some are drawn from my vacation photos, taken when I get a break from responsibility. I use sense memory and gesture to share the pleasure but am unable to deny what is seen, such as the contrasts of lives and fortune on the Las Vegas Strip, or the lot of work over leisure for servers in the Victoria & Albert Museum. Other paintings incorporate photos of spaces and objects in museums: using these I construct inviting sanctuaries which offer me comfort. I also work from imagination, exploring personal motifs and an abstract language of mark-making. There is a release of energy in the immediacy of what I am dealing with and by trusting to intuition and practice an image is created.
I’m currently working on a series about making it through the final year of my father’s life. He passed away recently at the fine age of ninety-seven years and seven months. I was his live-in caregiver for over eight years and suffered from sleep deprivation and financial challenges in this time. The solace I have found in beauty with the tandem flux of change, vulnerability and disintegration manifest in my work.
I’ve learned to accept tedious stress, share some sense of security tempered with dulling fatigue, and observe the falling apart along with the elation of making art from life.
