Fahri Aldin: Standing Alone Together
Dec 8 – 23, 2022.
Solo exhibition by Fahri Aldin focuses on gatherings of people in moments of ‘togetherness’, measured against the heroic ‘self’, who stands alone.
Matt Petley-Jones: Estuary
Nov 17 – Dec 6, 2022.
With thick impasto, Petley-Jones’s solo show constructs the essence of the ‘estuary’, a place of confluence and convergence.
Whimsy in a Time of Chaos: Marie H. Becker & Contemporary Artists
Nov 3 – 16, 2022.
Featured Contemporary artists uplift us, using naivety, childhood symbols and self-discovery in our exhibition, “Whimsy in a Time of Chaos”
Amelia Alcock-White: Current Sea
Oct 7 – 28, 2022
This new collection highlights the currency of water’s intrinsic value, presenting the concept of water as more than a mere material asset, Alcock-White renders perspective on decisions that trade pristine nature for economic gain.
Brigitta Kocsis: #techboyz
Sept 22 – Oct 6
The work reflects on the identity and displacement of young adults after long periods of isolation. Contemporary Hungarian-born Canadian visual artist, Brigitta Kocsis is best known for her large-scale paintings investigating the shifting concepts of the human body and its environment.
Michael Hermesh and Fahri Aldin: Figures and Forms
Michael Hermesh and Fahri Aldin: Figures and Forms
Sept 1 – 20th, 2022
This joint exhibition brings together Michael Hermesh and Fahri Aldin, Canadian contemporary artists who utilize the flattened human form within a tableau, shaping snapshots of human foolishness and intimacy.
Their investigation of humanity through symbolism and abstraction ignores representationalism in favour of highlighting narrative. The artists place their characters in a flat world, in which the hero is comparable to an actor on a stage. A collector of Hermesh’s work might purpose his subject isn’t a human figure at all, but rather the overarching experience of humanity and its follies. Expanding on these narratives, Hermesh explains, “Our functional narratives come from agreements, habits, misunderstandings and fears as well as rational insight. I am not saying we are all confused madmen; I am saying we are human to a fault.”
Complimenting the almost purely symbolic dramas of their two-dimensional works, the artists present multiple bronze sculptures. The bronze pieces remain both lighthearted and deceivingly lightweight, as the artists manipulate the medium in their documentation of humanity.
Group Exhibition: Dans le Jardin
Enter paradise beyond the garden wall. In this group exhibition the sensation of a summer’s stroll through idyllic lands takes you over.
Llewellyn Petley-Jones: Canadian Impressionist
July 5 – 26th, 2022. Llewellyn Petley-Jones honed his craft in Europe, bringing his Impressionist landscapes from Parisian streets to the prairies of Alberta.
Contemporary Group Exhibition: “Let the Summer Begin” June 16-29, 2022
Contemporary Group Exhibition: “Let the Summer Begin” June 16-29, 2022
The new contemporary group exhibition at the Petley Jones Gallery displays West Coast artists, who can testify to the slow start to the summer season. Wishing the warmth would come, we’ve invited seven contemporary artists to generate our own energy.
The contemporary group exhibition features Thomas Anfield, Marie Becker, John Horton, Michael Hermesh, Duncan Regehr, Ann Vandervelde and Blake Ward.
Thomas Anfield, in celebration of his monkey retrospective at the Art Gallery of the Grand Praire, is displaying the last of the Monkey Drinking Series, “Monkey’s Drinking”, originally shown at the Petley Jones Gallery.
Michael Hermesh is showing two bronze sculptures that are new to our gallery. The ever witty and critical pieces juxtapose the weighty medium of the bronze with Hermesh’s light-hearted commentary.
Marie Becker is producing many works this summer in preparation for her fall solo exhibition. Two of these new works included in this contemporary group exhibition are, “Hockney Shares His Pool” and “Human Race”.
Duncan Regehr’s work continues to reflect upon our lives, and our journeys, as a series of connected episodes. The activities of daily life are not generally recognized as being important to the path of destiny, however, when we experience an impactful moment.
Marine artist, John Horton, exhibits the tranquil and serene painting, “Solitude.” For those who have cruised the Pacific north coast, nothing can be more soothing than anchoring alone midst the grandeur of mountains and forests as they meet the sea. Here in the Misty Fjords of Alaska, you can almost hear the silence.
For Ann Vandervelde, a Seattle-based abstract artist, the challenge of abstract work is to accept that a composition is never quite done, that it has the capacity to evolve and change and be understood separate from that initial vision. We’ve brought in four works of Vandervelde that seem to harmonize with each other as if paintings could sing in colour and shape.
Inspired by grace and symmetry, Blake Ward’s work reappears in the gallery for the first time since his solo exhibition in December. Enchanted by the souls within our bodies, he explores an irresistible alchemy of sensuality and sentiment.
Michael Kluckner – Solo Exhibition
Michael Kluckner – Solo Exhibition
“The Rooming House” by Michael Kluckner launches Thursday, June 2nd, 2022, at the Petley Jones Gallery. Kluckner’s new solo exhibition at the gallery brings in paintings from his recent publication and studio practice. “The West Coast in the Seventies” exhibition includes new paintings by the artist, some of which swirl the boundary between representationalism and surrealism. Kluckner approaches familiar unanswered questions people asked in the Seventies. Questions around impending ecological disaster, urbanism, and a vanishing Vancouver.
In the 1960s and early ’70s, thousands of youths were on the road, hitchhiking across Canada, living in rooming houses in cities like Vancouver and in communes in the country.
In his book illustrations, Michael Kluckner follows several of these young men and women sharing an old home in Vancouver’s Kitsilano district, tracking their loves, losses and wanderings through the diary entries of two of them. It is both a coming-of-age novel and an exploration of the events of those years.
Kluckner’s solo exhibition invites viewers deeper into the illustrations, watercolours and oil paintings that capture Vancouver’s past and present.
In the words of one of his characters, the youth were
“just drifting, looking for something to believe in.”
Please join us for the book launch and solo exhibition, featuring paintings from Kluckner’s newest illustrated book, “The Rooming House”, at the Petley Jones Gallery on Thursday, June 2nd between 5 – 8 PM. Listen to a soundtrack of rock classics at the opening, meet the artist, and mingle with fellow appreciators of Vancouver’s history.