Niki Parry, Gordon Wallace & Heather Wanamaker | Surfacing

Niki Parry, Gordon Wallace and Heather Wanamaker
Surfacing

EDGE GALLERY, AUGUST 2 - 31, 2019

Landscape painting is an important tradition in the Yukon and beyond. Surfacing features new landscape works by three emerging Yukon painters: Gordon Wallace (Faro), Heather Wanamaker (Whitehorse), and Niki Parry (Whitehorse). Working with a variety of techniques, styles, and inspirations, all three artists offer their own distinct visions of the landscapes that surround us.

NIKKI PARRY
Niki Parry is an emerging visual artist working primarily in fluid acrylic painting. All her life, she has worked with many different types of artwork, drawn primarily to the projects where she can focus on and explore colour. Niki was introduced to fluid acrylics two years ago and has been intensively developing her skills and techniques ever since. She opened an Etsy shop in 2017 and has participated in local craft sales as well as the recent Arts Underground Light members show in December 2018. Niki moved to Whitehorse 20 years ago from Vancouver Island, and lives with her husband and 3 boys. While much of her time outside of work is spent taking her boys to hockey or the lake for paddling practice, she’s still able to find time to pursue her passion for fluid art.

HEATHER WANAMAKER
I see my paintings of the Yukon as inventories of fragmented memories - each connected to the other as products of the landscape and long winters.

I have a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the University of Victoria and have been painting for close to twenty years.

Having relocated to Whitehorse seven years ago, it is no coincidence that this coincided with a rekindling of my active engagement with painting. With some time off in between, I have re-engaged yet again with my art.

More than any other discipline, screen printing had the most significant impact on my artistic approach, teaching me about the process of creating, about layering not just media but ideas.

I have travelled extensively, living in the UK and then travelling through Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Russia, and Asia, and while these places inspired a number of paintings and drawings, it wasn’t until I moved to the Yukon that I began painting more frequently again. It was the colours, the hues, and shadows of the northern sun – the contrasts. But it was also the spectre of a long winter, which seemed to make the fall colours more vibrant. Of course, the winter can be vibrant, but the fall colours seem each year a kind of death knell of yellows, reds, oranges.

GORDON WALLACE
Gordie has made the move from Beautiful British Columbia to Adventurous Faro, Yukon. He has brought with him a love of wilderness, hiking, and canoeing (inspired by some earlier trips to the Yukon) and a few decades of drawing and painting.

Enjoyment is found being outdoors plein air sketching mostly with charcoal, ink, and oil paint on paper or masonite board. Capturing the essence of the image relatively quickly is the challenge.

Studio work on canvas or wood is often sizeable, impressionistic, sometimes intimate, sometimes more abstract, and at times more finely detailed portraits.

Sketching ideas and experimenting with medium is a creative path that plays with capturing interest within the medium itself, the image, and what may be beyond the image.

Etsy:
nikicolouradventures.etsy.com
Instagram:
nikicolouradventures
Facebook:
Niki's Colour Adventures

Instagram: art.by.heather.wanamaker
Facebook:
Art by Heather Wanamaker

Past Exhibitions