Jan
27
James Bay Art Walk Artist Profile
by Anne Hansen
You have until February 21st to enjoy The Remembering Garden, an art exhibit by Laurie Ladmore and Bryony Wynne-Jones. Complementing each other at the McPherson Playhouse gallery in downtown Victoria are Laurie's landscape works in oil and Bryony's bird and flower watercolours.
Laurie's canvases, inspired by local landscapes, are mixed with the slightly darker fairy tale forests and gardens of her mind. As a child, she made drawings of her imaginary worlds and immersed herself in colouring books.
Laurie says, "that which is sometimes hard to fully express in words, seems somehow mirrored perfectly in nature: the cycles of life, death and rebirth; joy and sorrow; self-expression and concealment. I'm usually drawn to things in the natural world as painting subjects, but I always want to put my own twist on it. If it's a landscape I want to make it into a bit of a fairy tale landscape. The florals are usually quite abstract and taken from details of a still life I've created and photographed from all angles. I usually start with something I have made an emotional connection with in the outer world. Through the journey of painting, it is transformed into a more interior landscape."
photo by Joan McCorry
Laurie attended the Victoria College of Art from 1994 to 1996. Her artist husband David Ladmore has been a huge artistic influence, and they are champions of each other's creativity. "I really do love his work," she says. "He manages to strike a great balance between abstraction and realism, so you have this intriguing combination of colour, form and paint. Then it's brought into focus just enough to make you think you are walking through a forest, for instance, but you can also just get lost in the brushwork and paint surface."
Laurie also admires James Abbott McNeill Whistler for his abstracts, and Gustav Klimt, Claude Monet, and Pierre Bonnard for their beautiful colours. The expressive landscapes of Vincent Van Gogh, the Group of Seven, and Emily Carr also speak to her. She loves the flowers of Piet Mondrian, the gorgeous fantasy worlds of Marc Chagall and Odilon Redon, and the exquisite illustrations of Arthur Rackham and N.C. Wyeth.
It's often not appreciated how much of an artist's time has to be allocated to "administration." A good chunk of Laurie's life is spent tending to the office needs of her and David's art. These tasks naturally conflict with studio time. They include preparing for shows, doing publicity, photographing subject matter, cataloguing works, carting delicate and heavy art up and down stairs, and maintaining a website.
Laurie says, "Actually finding the time to paint is the greatest challenge. Then getting my brain switched over into a creative space is the second greatest challenge. Sometimes it takes a while. I do a lot of photography and spend some time looking at the photos and imaging them as paintings and sometimes making sketches. Making my brain switch from administration to art and then back again is difficult. When I get into the art mode I start to see relationships between colours and shapes more clearly, and then when I stop to make dinner or something, I find myself bumping into things because part of my brain is still in front of the canvas and not fully present in my body."
Laurie Ladmore is also treasurer and a driving force in the James Bay Art Walk, held every September. Her works can be seen here: (http://members.shaw.ca/laurieladmore/laurieladmore.html)
New and previous artists wishing to get involved with the Art Walk art invited to attend a meeting on Wednesday February 16th, 7 pm, at the James Bay Community School, 140 Oswego. For information call: (250) 381-7313.