Avis Rasmussen
Normandy Paintings
Preview
Saturday, October 31, 2009 10 am – 5:30 pm
(work subject to prior sale)
Opening Reception
Sunday, November 1, 2009 1 pm – 5 pm
Avis Rasmussen in attendance.
Elizabeth Ely, harpist; Karel Roessingh, pianist
Exhibition continues until November 21, 2009
Avis Rasmussen is a Victoria artist and print-maker of national significance who carries a West Coast narrative to her 'plein air' painting. Rasmussen completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts with distinction in painting in 1979, and her Masters in Art Education in 1982. She is a celebrated poet and has been advocating her whole life, for the arts community in Victoria through a variety of organizations and in her capacity as a mentor to a younger generation of artists. Rasmussen has won international status at the Pretoria International exhibition (2000); at the International School of Drawing, Painting, Sculpture exhibition in Montecastello di Vibio (2003), at an international exhibition in Hastings, New Zealand (2006). Her paintings are in collections, both public and private world-wide. Rasmussen attracts collectors with an interest in the narrative approach to colour and light which is atypical to how European 'old world' subjects are viewed with new patterns.
Avis Rasmussen developed her style in the same practice and space as Emily Carr's own narrative, with deep dedication to home, garden, beach, and field, and countless hours of process with attention to image and form. Rasmussen's Normandy Paintings result fromtaking her eye to the Maison Rose, Claude Monet's garden, in the pink May of 2009. Rasmussen says she could “paint colour, light, and form in Giverny, forever.” She also took her paintbox to Rouen Cathedral where Monet painted day and night. Rasmussen explored Honfleur, birthplace of Boudin and Champlain, and set up her easel in the old harbour with its ancient gatehouse. On one wet day, she painted Ste. Catherine's wooden church from her hotel window. It is revealing how in Normandy, being both an artist and a Canadian, showers words of praise from strangers who remember how liberty came to France across the treacherous Atlantic and the connect between our two countries seems as strong as family. This is evoked in a persistent feeling, stirred in image and paint, in the Normandy narrative.
Avis Rasmussen sketched as she traveled the aquamarine sea and the white sands of Deauville, Trouville, beaches beloved of the Impressionist painters, and the dunes of Juno Beach north of Caen. Lastly, one of her life-long dreams fulfilled, she worked to catch the architectural shapes under spring sunlight and shadow, of the medieval walled-island of Mount St. Michaels which rises from the sand. Through Avis Rasmussen's eye you can see how these places are distinguished in a completely refreshing way. --Roland Rasmussen