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New exhibitions on display through Nov. 20 at McMillan Arts Centre in Parksville

Trio of new creative exhibits ready to be viewed
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(Lynne Patrick artwork)

There are three new creative exhibitions on at the McMillan Arts Centre (MAC) in Parksville.

Visions includes paintings by Majie Lavergne and Claudia Lohmann.

Majie Lavergne, an abstract painter born in Paris, has received five awards from the Federation of Canadian Artists (FCA). His work has appeared in more than 30 solo and group exhibitions in France, the U.S. and Canada.

Lavergne’s series is all about love. In each painting, he deconstructs the word ‘love’ into lines and circles in various configurations, with the letter ‘e’ into the bottom right.

“It reminds us that just like the sun, sometimes hiding behind the clouds, love too, is always present,” Lavergne said in a news release by the MAC.

Lavergne enjoyed using a new art medium, known as “alcohol ink”.

Lohmann, who was born in Germany, but now resides in Ladysmith, has been exposed to art her entire life.

Her father was an artist accomplished in landscapes, architecture and still life. She immigrated to Canada in 1995 with her husband and three children. In 2004, while managing a gallery on Salt Spring Island, featuring the art of Richard Jacksties, her own creativity and desire to paint were catalyzed. With her family’s support and encouragement, she began to experiment with various styles and mediums and has since come to favor acrylic paint on wood and canvas.

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Lohmann’s paintings began with rudimentary geometric shapes in intricate patterns, with bold colours. Although still rooted in her beginnings, her style progressed into a more deliberate method featuring bold lineation and tincture with subtle shapes and symbolism. She calls it “Imaginative Geometric Abstract.”

Lohmann has displayed her work in exhibitions such as Sooke Fine Art Show, Sidney Fine Art Show, the Federation of Canadian Artist Gallery on Granville Island in Vancouver, Nanaimo Fine Art Show and in the Ladysmith Waterfront Gallery.

Visions is on display in the Concert Gallery at the MAC.

Lynne Patrick’s Growth, which explores beach grass landscapes and wild bird murmurations, can be viewed in the MAC’s Nemeth Gallery.

The former contrasts the small ordinariness of beach grass within its greater context: the cosmic energies of sky, sun, earth, wind and water, according to the release.

It includes plays on visual perspective: the beach grass growing at one’s feet superimposed on the expansiveness of a sky view or a distant ocean horizon. The series emerged after several days of camping near Tofino.

“Abstraction is my favourite way of exploring an idea with paint and collage,” Patrick said in the release. “I use intuitive techniques such as collage, layering of paint and scraping or scratching into wet paint which adds mystery, depth and fragmentation simulating the imperfection of vision, the fluid nature of memory and the richness of lived experience.”

The paintings within this exhibition invite the viewer to consider a context of uncontrollable and massive external forces, large scale almost atmospheric perspectives and the small living beings that grow there.

A group exhibition by Joan Larson and the Pastel Pushers is on display in the Oceanside Gallery at the MAC.

Larson has been guiding the painting group for several years — eight of the 12 members will see their work hang in the gallery.

“We’ve passed the student/teacher relationship and now we get together to paint and share our time and enthusiasm for pastels as our chosen painting medium,” Larson said in the release.

The three exhibits will be on at the MAC through Nov. 20.

— NEWS Staff, submitted

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