21 - Friday, October 21, 1988 - North Shore News

Ess

Artists’
erspectives

West Van
artists talk
about their craft

. . NEWS photo Mike Wakefield
ELIZABETH FISHER...gentle colors, fine detail and a touch of mystery.

i ofits RT IS many
things to many people.
With a backdrop of
spectacular natura! beauty
and scenery, the North
Shore seems to have more
than its share of artists,
each having a different

STEPHEN
BARRINGTON

feature writer

vision of their craft.
North Shore Now this
week takes a look at a
sampling of three West
Vancouver artists.

Color to paint the spirit

SYLVIA TAIT has no favorite color.
Her favorite scene is the entire
B.C. landscape, and she feels
painting ‘should be read in con-
text other than (in) literal transla-
tion.”

Raised in Montreal, she started
her artistic career inauspiciously,
at the age of seven creating
classroom murals. As an art school
student, she would witness the
turmoil of Quebec’s changing cul-
tural identity in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

She explains her use of color: it
“is so deeply ingrained in one’s

psyche and cultural background

that it becomes a personal state-

ment about oneself or spirit.”

Working on large canvasses with
a liberal dose of color, West Van-
couver’s Tait is always searching to
express herself for the moment.
From that search will eventually
come work as yet unpainted.

Landscapes count for a large
portion of her work, and as a
“symbolic painter’ she
transforms the scene found there
into an expression of herself.

To avoid “being put in a box,”
she will not disclose her age.

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Painter of hidden faces

ONCE SHE sold a work, Elizabeth
Fisher knew she should be paint-
ing every day.

“| thought, ‘Why should | be
emptying the dishwasher when |
can paint?’ remembers Fisher.

Now spending her days painting
in her West Vancouver home stu-

ROSS PENHALL captures a world
often unnoticed.

dio, Fisher creates works of warm,
delicate colors and fine details.

In a subtle touch of mystery, the

. subjects often have their backs to

the viewer,

“You never know who they are
or what they're thinking,” Fisher,
40, explains. ‘Hopefully, (the

viewer) will never get bored of
waiting for them to turn around.”

Schooled at the Rachel - .
McMillan College in London, she
sold her first work for the
equivalent of $10; today her paint-
ings may be found in a host of
private and corporate collections.

Fisher's Summer Renaissance
exhibition continues at the Van-
couver’s Art Works Gallery until
Nov. 5.

Capturing the overlooked

OUT RIDING his bike, Ross
Penhall makes a point of looking
at the surroundings. When some-
thing catches his eye, he stops; out
comes the sketchpad.

“A lot of my art is stuff that
people forget to see,’’ says
Penhall, a West Vancouver °
firefighter for the past eight years.
“They don’t look left, right or up
— only straight ahead.’’

Working primarily with color
pencil, Penhall, 29, captures an
unnoticed world, a world of win-
dow baskets, side roads and out-
of-the-way streets,

Interested in art through his
elementary school days and into
adult life, Penhall recently won
first prize in the 1988 Coho Art
Festival for his colored pencil and
graphite piece.

“Y'm a real tover of light,
shadow and contrasts,” the
Horseshoe Bay artist says of his
work. ‘I’m not a selfish artist —
don’t do art for myself, | do it so
people will like it.”

Penhall’s latest show opens at
the West Vancouver Memorial
Library Nov. 2 and runs until the
end of the month.

ON A RETURN ENGAGEMENT

FROM THE LOEW’S HOTEL IN
MONTE CARLO AND WRAPPING
UP A RECORDING SESSION WITH THE
LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

THE THREE GREENHORNS IS

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_ 6S KENNY COLMAN

eS

THREE NIGHTS
OCT. 20, 21, 22
WITH

Monday Night °
Jam Session

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Reservations Recommended

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No coupons

OCT. 24

Wednesday Guitarist/Vocatist |

MICHAEL CUMMINGS