Foursight, a visual arts show, opens at the Seaside Centre in Sechelt today, (June 17) with a pleasant mix of watercolour and acrylic, scenery and abstract. It represents the work of four Coast artists of great experience, all of whom are active members of the Federation of Canadian Artists (FCA): Tom Fraser, Lenore Conacher, Louise Lenko and Wendy Simmonds."We're all different in style," says Sechelt's Fraser.
He is 81 years old and can't remember a time when he didn't paint. For this show, he will be showing his oils and watercolours. Each artist is limiting themselves to ten paintings for display and sale. Conacher, who has been involved with the Gibsons School of the Arts since its inception, has a strong reputation for watercolour. She'll show her traditional subjects, flowers and still life, but she is also keen to show her abstracts rendered in fluid acrylic. This style uses metal leaf to make the paintings glisten.
Lenko is a Sechelt watercolour artist who paints a huge variety of subjects: portraiture, fish, animals and landscapes. "I love doing boats -tug boats, pleasure boats, row boats," she said.
Her painting of a wooden boat is currently to be seen all over the Coast, reproduced on the poster for the forthcoming Wooden Boat Festival. The original of the painting will be sold at silent auction to raise money for the Coast Guard Auxiliary.
Simmonds has exhibited at the Harbour Gallery as recently as this May in a show called Living By Water. She has also had a successful show at the Burnaby Arts Council Gallery.
Three of the artists are members of the Gibsons Landing Gallery, an artists' cooperative, and show work there regularly. Conacher explains they are only four of a number of other artists on the Coast who are active members of the FCA. This status of professional membership indicates a level of acceptance of their art that allows them to submit paintings to certain shows.
This show will run Friday, June 17, to Monday, June 20, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The opening reception is tonight from 4 to 7 p.m. One of the Foursight artists will be on site during open hours.
