To Tony Kirby, his work is all about movement and interpretation.
As an abstract artist living in Bowser and working in oil paints, Kirby looks to nature not only for inspiration, but to depict “that human connection to the land.”
“Those influences from the natural world are very much a part of me. Those things creep into your bones,” he said.
Until the end of September, Kirby’s work will be on display at the Qualicum Art Supply and Gallery in Qualicum Beach. His collection there, which he refers to unofficially as Earthworks, is everything he has created since early 2020.
The title Earthworks is a metaphor, he said.
“The name opens up possibilities that have less to do with what you might see, and more with what you might experience.”
Though working in abstract, Kirby considers his style as more ‘semi-abstract’ since people always find something familiar in his work, and prefers to go beyond genre labels.
In everything he creates, what he calls his persistent-self is present.
“No matter what you do (as an artist), you always have a certain way of laying and mark making - a certain way of putting down strokes on a canvas,” he said.
“There’s a certain way you deal with the intensity of the colour, etc., that always comes back to your temperament. And after years of painting, that becomes a recognizable thing.”
Over the years, he’s noticed what he calls an internal struggle in his own work.
“Its just something that always shows up, whether I want it to or not,” he said. “This kind of push and pull, like something trying to free itself; my persistent-self.”
In integrating nature and the abstract, Kirby aims to portray how the natural word makes him feel and encourages viewers to interpret his feelings.
“I might start with a shape that I saw along the shoreline, like a very small piece of seaweed,” he said. “And from it, I’ll find some dynamic shape. And I might do a painting with that in mind, but that shape will suddenly become monumental.”
When naming his creations, Kirby aims to find titles that suggest dynamic movement as he feels this best reflects the constantly transforming state of nature.
His journey into the arts started at age 14, after moving to Nanaimo from Victoria in the early 1960s with his family, where, as a teenager, he received private art instruction.
In his mid-to-late teens, Kirby studied under the Hungarian artist Michael Gergely who first taught him how to work with oil paints.
Approximately six years ago, Kirby played a significant role in three Nanoose Bay welcome signs by designing and molding the aesthetic of the arbutus trees.