AUREN RUVINSKY
writer@pqbnews.com
England-based painter and sculptor David Meekison is back in Qualicum Beach for the summer, finding inspiration in the quiet and displaying his experimental new style at the Art Worx Gallery.
"Last summer I was here as a kind of break and I had one of the biggest artistic breakthroughs I've ever had," he said from his picturesque outdoor studio space in his mother's yard.
From B.C. originally, Meekison has lived in Toronto, New York and a number of places in Europe.
"I was living in Berlin having all kinds of visa trouble and I figured since I have a dual British citizenship it was the best time to try it out," he said of his move to London about a year ago.
After his breakthrough he returned to Europe and continued to develop his style and crank out many paintings.
This summer he returned to the quiet seaside space to relax and maybe do some painting, but he was again struck with inspiration and found himself painting for a full exhibition starting this Saturday.
He's trying a new style blending his abstract painting with stencils and patterns from every day objects.
He points to the outline of a hand saw and hammer in one of his new paintings called Hammer Saw and suggests the images will give people easy access into the painting which then provides many layers of less obvious images that people can explore.
While the exhibition may include some of his older work — depending how much painting he gets done in the next four days — it will be anchored by two large four-by-eight foot images called Everything Under the Sun.
He already has them planned in great detail in his head and is using things like ropes, hoses and plastic buckets to help form the paint and give it a lot of physical depth, but the final result will be all paint without mixed media elements.
Meekison said that though he's been at it for many years and had some success, he's just starting to make a living as an artist and a lot of opportunities are starting to come together for him.
He will head back to London for the winter but he's working on a special joint exhibition with Dan Gray at The Old School House art gallery next summer.
He said he's excited to be working with the relatively new Art Worx Gallery, in the old Home Hardware location across from the liquor store, which he said is trying to foster young upcoming art and could eventually become a kind of landmark gallery.
The current art show "City Inside" opens at Art Worx, 701 Primrose St. Qualicum Beach, this Saturday, Sept. 21 from noon to 5 p.m. and he estimates it will run for a month.