Nana Cook woke up one morning and decided she had to paint.
The Nanoose Bay artist said she tried out the art form in high school, but did not take any formal classes before she dove in.
In the years since she started, Cook has shown her paintings in galleries in B.C. and Alberta, donated artwork to fundraising events and created illustrations for a book. Her paintings even made the trip overseas for Women's Declaration, a contemporary art exhibit in Shanghai.
Lately she is interested in painting works of art inspired by her own backyard.
“The focus right now is on the Salish Sea and beyond,” said Cook, who finds inspiration all along the coast of Vancouver Island.
A beach access close to her home in Nanoose is one of her favourite spots lately, as is Moorecroft Regional Park.
“The scenes from there, I mean it changes every minute. Every day is different when you go there,” Cook said.
Her exhibit at Qualicum Art Supply and Gallery includes many landscape paintings. The scenes will be familiar to locals — but not too familiar, since Cook does not believe in painting an exact representation of a place.
“That way it’s a painting, it’s not just an exact copy of something,” she added. “I purposefully do that so that I’m not creating a sort of photo representational painting, why not just get a photograph then.”
Cook recently got back into painting and showing her work after the death of her husband, the celebrated painter Ken Kirkby, in 2023.
Kirkby became well-known across Canada for his paintings, many of which depict the Arctic and the people who live there. He worked on a 31-year project, part of which was the creation of a painting which he called "Isumataq" — an Inuktitut word meaning "an object in the presence of which wisdom might show itself", according to his website. The giant portrait of the Arctic landscape and its inukshuit took 12 years to paint and was unveiled during Kirkby’s speech to Canadian Parliament in 1992.
Cook got inspired by trips she made to the American Southwest and it was after taking lots of photos she felt she needed to “put it down another way”.
When she first started, she said she would paint as far as she could with each attempt, and made it further with each try. Eventually she was able to go back and finish some of those paintings as she learned more.
Cook does not have any tips except this: “just dig in. Don’t be afraid of it. Don’t be afraid of a blank canvas."
Her exhibition will be on display at Qualicum Art Supply and Gallery (206 First Ave.) until the end of March, and possibly longer, according to owner Bonnie Luchtmeijer.
