Previous Exhibitions current upcoming previous   IMMANENT LIGHT Flemming Jorgensen    An Exhibition and Sale of watercolours by Flemming Jorgensen ... a fundraiser for Abkhazi Gardens at ABKHAZI GARDENS OPENING - 3pm - 5pm   These luminous works, from Jorgensen's garden series, have been donated to the Abkhazi Gardens, in Victoria, with the goal of raising funds for garden illumination.  In honour of the event, the works will be sold well below market value to encourage the art collector and Abkhazi Garden supportors. LOCATION: ABKHAZI GARDENS   1964 Fairfield Road, Victoria   STORE STREET LOCATION CLOSES The FRAN WILLIS GALLERY is in the process of being re-organized as an on-line Gallery. FRAN WILLIS continues as an active Art Consultant. Keep tuned!!     FAREWELL EXHIBITION CELEBRATING 25 YEARS - Fran Willis welcomes you to the closing exhibition of the FRAN WILLIS GALLERYat 1619 Store Street, Featuring a selection of works from artists who have exhibited during the last 25 years OPENING - Opening Reception, Thursday, June 21 - 7-9pm     NORMAN YATES - recent works Norman Yates    also featuring Contemporary Glass by MORNA TUDOR and GARY BOLT OPENING - Reception - Thursday, May 24 7-9pm   Movement and space; boundless and restless nature; these are the ingredients.   ... Norman Yates 2007   MORNA TUDOR and GARY BOLT Contemporary Glass - blown and cast     A Pilgrim's Evocation Mitsu Ikemura    OPENING - Thursday, April 26, 2007 7-9pm                              TIMOTHY WILSON HOEY AND SARA McINTOSH Timothy Hoey    FRAN WILLIS GALLERY presents an exhibition of paintings by TIMOTHY HOEY and SARA McINTOSH at THE BRENTWOOD BAY LODGE AND SPA     Then.....and Now - a survey exhibition of works from over 30 years             "SURVIVAL" Sylvia Bews-Wright    OPENING - OPENING:Thursday Mar.1 7-9pm   The three series of works in this exhibition share the theme of survival ... paintings and drawings produced after the arrtist survived a serious accident.  RUN - a metaphor representing not just the salmon run but species at risk, usually because of human priorities.  FLOAT - shows the artist's fascination with distortion, reflection, and refraction, as swimmers are caught in the tension of water during theraputic pool sessions.  PATIENT - a visual metaphor for who the artist was prior to the accident that left the body in pieces; then throiugh reflections on the past, and through continuing explorations, she creates an unanticipated new form, a chrysalis still growing.   "Orchidaceous" Dan MacDougall    OPENING - Thursday Feb.1 7-9pm   In the spring of 2006, after 30 years of working with abstract concepts and images, I felt compelled to do a series of representational works.  The images I chose to work with are orchids.  These works are meant to be an expression of the exotic nature of these beasts of the plant kingdom. I am intrigued by the romance and danger of their history of collection from remote and dark locations of the planet, the lore and legends of the men who risked their lives to find them, the almost human or animal behavior of their evolution from a terrestrial to epiphytic habit in order to reach the light, and the often erotic and evocative nature of their forms. DAN MacDOUGALL  2007   Recent Works OPENING - November 30, 5pm - 8pm   Angela Morgan's work celebrates humanity through the use of colour, pattern, and line. Her human figures express the poses of life; the jubilation of dance, the contemplation of parenthood, and the melancholy of summer's end. Colours fuse and meld to achieve gesture, transforming abstract images into living moments. Also featuring "Give the Gift of Art", small works by gallery artists chosen for the season   JOY ANSON - Figurative Works Joy Anson    OPENING - November 2, 7 - 9 pm   Anson is what might be called a “primitive” artist, who instinctively ignores such traditional art conventions as the use of linear perspective to create illusions of volume and recession.  This style of painting may appear to be innocent, childlike, and spontaneous, but this is usually deceptive. The work results in a charmingly refreshing vision; strong use of pattern and colour; abstraction of the figure, particularily facial and bodily proportions; flatness, geometric designs, and simplicity.   Six Contemporary Artists of Indian Heritage Haren Vakil    OPENING - November 2, 7 - 9 pm   TWO FROM VICTORIA: exhibiting artists at the FRAN WILLIS GALLERY: HAREN VAKIL - paintings and drawings Vakil,born in Bombay,  living in Victoria and exhibiting with the FRAN WILLIS GALLERY  brings his unique work, "naive and sophisticated... impossible to explain and hard to forget" .... Robert Amos JASWANT GUZDER - paintings and drawings Guzder grew up in Victoria and currently livies in Montreal. Her sensitive figurative works focus on relationship, realities and         dreams FOUR FROM INDIA - well established and recognized in India, and now achieving international recognition. SHAHID PARVEZ  - paintings, etchings and silkscreens MEGHANSH THAPA - paintings AMIT DUTT - paintings VINAY SHARMA  - mixed media paintings   CAROLE THOMPSON - Dimensional Dream OPENING - Thursday, Oct. 5 7-9pm   "This series of work evolved out of my travels and residency in Australia. It is about my discovery of a deep physical bond to the land and the experience of being spiritually connected to some indigenous concepts.....Just as Aboriginal artists paint their own dreamings, some of my paintings are "maps" of my own journey dreamings. I reinterpret and reinvent traditional Aboriginal symbology as they speak to the heart and mind of someone raised in a western culture. Information is conveyed by multiple layers of images and symbols on canvas, using high colour, patterning, transparency and reflective surfaces"...Carole Thompson 2006   SOUL JOURNEYS John McConnell and Geraldine Slater OPENING - Thursday, Sept. 7, 7 - 9 pm   John McConnell’s paintings from the Ancient Soul series speak about life’s journey  - each Ancient Soul, in its own  unique vessel form, is involved in a personal and lonely struggle to attain eternal life. There is always strength and hope.  With each painting he hopes to reveal something new to the viewer and take them on a spiritual journey not previously  experienced. These works, richly painted and layered with colour texture and imagery are in collections throughout the  world. McConnell has returned to Canada after his own recent journey back to Ireland to discover his own heritage. Geraldine Slater’s vessel forms are inspired by the early Gaelic, ocean-going currachs unique to the west coast of Ireland. The pieces are framed with cane and mesh covered in a variety of hand made paper as well as a variey of mixed media. The surfaces are textured to express the effects of time and the environement often contrasted with precious gilded  interiors.   CHERYL TAVES - Traces Cheryl Taves    OPENING - Thursday, June 8, 7 - 9 pm   Finding the evidence and markers along the way, this new work explores the traces of relationship - with the self, with others and with the work itself. This exhibition of mixed media painting and works on Mylar reflects the artist’s process and personal imagery. Through a layering of materials, mark making and erasure a history is revealed that speaks of need, curiosity, identity and compulsion. Color is set against the purity of white – white becoming the transformer – compelling, obliterating, perilous, cleansing and fresh. The traces of what was once there are revealed and hidden in an ongoing cycle of transformation, division and reconstruction, finally resting at the edge of recognition allowing the viewer to create their own narrative and personal meaning.   Also featuring: DARIAN DAY - new works: acrylic and plaster on canvas   NORMAN YATES - The Space Between Norman Yates    OPENING - Thursday, May 11   Norman Yates’  unself-conscious paintings “walk the line between perceptive space and the quality of space on the surface”. The visual dynamic that is created in the tension between foreground and background in his paintings draws the eye and the mind into profoundly introspective spaces. Linda Rogers, FOCUS, April 2006 Nature, weather, light, and space are the elemental raw materials in the abstract paintings Norman Yates calls ‘landspaces’. ... that create a feeling of continuous and unbounded extension in every direction ... being less about subject matter and more about space, change, movement and colour. Brian Brennan, gallerieswest,  2004   JAMES GORDANEER - James Gordaneer    Heads OPENING - Thursday April 13, 7pm-9pm   "The 'Heads' are just containers to all the things I want to do with painting". James Gordaneer 2006 "...each painting is a variation on a psychological or perhaps a metaphysical study of the endless experience of human life, and the titles are'only' an anchoring free-association to assist the viewer in the development of their own narrative". Brian Grison, Focus Magazine, April 2006   WENDY SKOG - Metaphor Wendy Skog    OPENING - March 16, 2006 7-9pm   Metaphor is a collection of new works expressing the spirit, energy, confusion, surprise, excitement, tragedy, unpredictability, drama, and innocence we have collectively experienced through lifetimes. The work draws from the vulnerability and consciousness gained through these experiences without their graphic portrayal... As I search for what is unique in each painting, layers of paint of various consistency are developed.  The cyclic process of adding, subtracting, and editing eventually produces a record of my relationship with the painting that, of course, is the painting itself... The work is an expression of fundamental experience, my intuitive sense of life freed from the reiteration of concrete experience. Wendy Skog 2006   "IT'S ABOUT TIME"" Donna Kelly    OPENING - February 16, 2006 7-9pm   Victoria artist, DONNA KELLY, depicts daily impressions of a specific slice of the Olympic Mountan Range in Washington State. Her drawings of Hurricane Ridge as seen from the window of her Moss Rocks studio, celebrate the mystery of an ever-changing landscape - simple, infinite, and possibly incomprehensible.  Along with composite and single drawings of Hurricane Ridge, the show includes impressions of the BC and Alaska coasts. PERFORMANCE: a original composition by ANDRÉ CORMIER, created as his response to Kelly's drawings will be performed by MIEKA KOHUT, solo viola - opening night at 8:30 pm, Feb.26 and Mar.5 at 8 pm   MEGHAN HILDEBRAND and PETER McFARALANE OPENING - January 19, 2006 -7-9pm   "PACIFICO" MEGHAN HILDEBRAND'S paintings examine the space created when the industrial apparatus confronts the natural splendour.  The beauty of the conflicting images are defined through the use of exhuberant colour, and the contrast of such elements as dark vs light, natural  vs man-made, ancient vs modern....... INTRODUCING: PETER McFARLANE... Circuit boards and other re-cycled materials are used as the canvas/platform for the artist to express his ideas about the relationship of science, landscape, and organic objects.   "Home" OPENING - November 3, 2005 7-9pm   Having finally found "home" in many senses of the word, this new work reflects the space that's opening around that experience. It's really just about searching for doorways to new meaning within the thrill of the process, the excitement of colors laid next to each other, and the expressiveness of a single line. "Home" after all, when we finally find it, seems to be a place to which we are finally returning, after a long time.   "Celebrated Faces" Iris Nardini    OPENING - November 3 2005, 7-9pm   Iris Nardini takes real and imagined people as a reference point, allowing them to evolve through process.  Inspired by family, friends and opera, these works are documents of human existence and represent the staes of emotion, pushing forward the raw vulnerability in all of us.   The power of these portraits comes from the individuals, their drama, invention and mystery.   GRIDS AND GROUNDS Harry Stanbridge    OPENING - October 6, 2005 - 7-9pm   HARRY STANBRIDGE'S work explores two distinct but complimentary directions.  One deals with grids, and the optical events that are possible in that type of visual encounter. The other explores the superimposition of a painted surface over a "ground" of a natural or historical situation. Both painting directions howevr depend on light generated by color tonalities to express a sense of the sublime. OPENING:   Thursday 6th October, 2005 7pm - 9pm   new works OPENING - Thursday June 2, 2005 7-9pm   ANGELA MORGAN celebrates humanity through her exhuberent use of colour and pattern.  Her human figures express the poses of life;the jubilation of dance, the contemplation of parenthood, and the melancholy of summer's end.   Colours fuse and meld to achieve gesture, transforming abstract images into living moments.   sculpture Gary Merkel    OPENING - June 2, 2005-7-9pm     SHARED VIEWS HELEN ROGAK and BETTY MEYERS -Two artists show their love of nature through landscape paintings, often resulting from shared painting expeditions to familiar places in and around Victoria. OPENING - May,5,2005 - 7-9pm     FLESH and BONES CHARLES MALINSKY - paintings and drawings STEPHAN BIRCHER-sculpture. Charles Malinsky's and Stephan Bircher's works share a sense of theatre in their characterizations, allegories, and non-conventional subject matter. OPENING - March 7,2005 7-9pm     SHOWCASING NEW TALENT Two Solo Exhibitions - Dan McDougall and Cheryl Taves OPENING - February 10, 2005 7-9pm     RETROSPACE Norman Yates    Selections for a Retrospective OPENING - November 4th, 2005 27 -9 p.m.   The FRAN WILLIS GALLERY is honored to present this exceptional exhibition, a glimpse into the lifetime achievement of Norman Yates, artist, teacher and mentor.