Local landmarks, scenes from transit and other urban images can be found on the walls of the Gallery at Queen’s Park in July.
Transits and Reveries, featuring work by New Westminster artist Sherida Charles, is running at the Arts Council of New Westminster’s gallery from July 1 to 31.
“My recent mixed media works and acrylic on canvas paintings revolve around the realities of living and moving through an urban space: a space filled with signs, bold colour and shapes, and fleeting glimpses of incongruous imagery,” Charles said in a press release. “There are short stints on transit and passing glances at street scenes, neon, plant displays in storefronts, leaf shapes in gardens, and the layered effect of multiple impressions in rapid succession.”
Charles said her transit scenes are reflective of quick sketches to capture composition, with linear, primary-coloured compositions that recall the work of Dutch artist Piet Mondrian.
“Depending on the daylight hour aboard the train, the shadows shift and crate strong shapes. The scenes and occupants constantly change in and endlessly varied, multicultural diorama,” she said. “The environment of the train and buses also serves as a common denominator of humanity and represents the essence of our urban population.”
Charles was born in Kingston, Jamaica and settled in New Westminster after moving to Canada in 1976. She attended high school in Burnaby and studied fine arts at the University of British Columbia, with a year of post-grad study at the Banff Centre. She recently left her work as a secondary school art teacher to focus on her own art practice.
The gallery is at Centennial Lodge, Queen’s Park. It’s open Wednesdays through Sundays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The gallery follows current provincial health orders, so visitors are advised that masks are optional and physical distancing is still encouraged. Anyone who’s feeling unwell is asked to stay home.
Entry is free, but donations to the ongoing operations of the gallery are encouraged.
Follow Julie MacLellan on Twitter @juliemaclellan.
Email Julie, jmaclellan@newwestrecord.ca.
