Drawing artistic inspiration from the natural environment is as ancient and varied a practice as human art itself. At the Sunshine Coast Art Centre’s Doris Crowston Gallery in Sechelt for the next few weeks, exhibitions featuring the work of two painters demonstrate a breadth of styles possible in nature-inspired art.
At first glance, one can’t be sure whether the current work of painter Lucas Kratochwil is, in fact, photography. But these are indeed paintings, mostly of snow-capped, southwest B.C. mountains under huge blue skies. The nine pieces the Roberts Creek artist has brought to this show, Immersion in Nature, are not just from a proverbial birds-eye view, but from the view of an eagle – strikingly high, broad, and precise.
“When I can, I go and do studies in plein air, but that can be tough. So, I take hundreds of photographs [from a small aircraft],” Kratochwil said in an interview.
While from 20 feet away these works might appear to be photos, that changes from a distance of just a few feet. “You can see up close, I like to keep it painterly,” Kratochwil said. He has found that, counter-intuitively, when he tries to produce precise photo-realism, it doesn’t work. “If I keep going too much into detail, it doesn’t look good from a distance. There’s something about keeping some level of abstraction in the brushwork. When you’re far away, it looks smoother.”
Kratochwil grew up in an artistic family – his father and grandfather also were painters – among the plains and mountains of Argentina’s Patagonia region. “I went through all the phases [of painting style],” he said. “I’ve done abstract, I’ve done surrealism. I also love all the Renaissance styles. But for the past three years, this [semi-photo-realism] has also found a market. This is something I can see myself painting forever and not get bored with it.”
An exhibition called Forest Skin by Squamish-based painter Veronica Trujillo is sharing the gallery space and presents a markedly different take on the wilds of our coast environment. The view is from the ground, the scale is narrower and in a unique impressionist style through the eyes of someone coming upon a series of evocative forest scenes. Trujillo, born in Mexico City and a resident in Canada for eight years, said she is inspired by her many walks in the heavily wooded Alice Lake area.
“The forest is so lush, is so robust, so impressive,” she said. “Before I came to Canada, I never saw anything like that. I am continuing to be embraced by it. All the time, there is something new to see.”
The human interaction, “the marks we have left” on the second growth Sea to Sky forests, is reflected in the human skin-like colour palettes Trujillo uses imaginatively, “transferring them with a gesture, a stain, and a mark to the skin of the forest.”
Trujillo also has added another layer to her exhibition in a series of six-by-six-inch paintings, many of which she has copied from details of her larger works, which become their own abstract pieces.
Immersion in Nature and Forest Skin will be on exhibit until Aug. 16. Each artist also is conducting a free online workshop over the next few weeks. Details are on the Arts Council website at sunshinecoastartscouncil.com/
