SELECTED WORKS

April 3 – 30, 2011
At 2260 Oak Bay Avenue

Preview:  Saturday April 2, 2011   10 am -5:30 pm

OPENING RECEPTION
Sunday April 3, 2011   1 – 5 pm
Elizabeth Ely, harpist;  Karel Roessingh, pianist

Born in Dorset, England in 1916, and brought up on the Canadian Prairies, also residing in Montreal and the Maritimes.  Through her married years she spent time in Australia, Brazil and Mexico, until finally settling in Victoria, B.C. where she lived until her death in January 2010, at the age of 93.

P.K. Page is perhaps best known for her literary achievements.  The visual arts were important to P.K. from her earliest years, but it was not until she moved to Brazil in 1957 that she under went the transformation from P.K. Page the writer to P.K. Irwin the visual artist.

Impelled by curiosity Page / Irwin explored the many materials of art making, including India ink in a stylo, oil pastels, the slower media of painting with oils and etching, to the mysteries of the age-old technique of egg tempera.

P.K. believed all artists to be 'Magicians and Conjurers '.  When asked what she believes 'Art' is, she responded - 'Art is play, a spontaneous involvement in the sheer joy of language, but there is something more: "At times I seem to be attempting to copy exactly something which exists in a dimension where worldly senses are inadequate".  Her artwork surges from this space in-between, where a change in the thickness of line or tone of color alters space, bringing new worlds to light.  This other "space" was primary to her life and art for 40 years.

Perhaps, most noted was her love of nature and this planet.  In an address to a university graduating class, she talked of the 'Importance of Art in our Lives', saying that "a work of art / ' can rap and knock and enter in all our souls'/ and re-align us, all our molecules-/ to make us whole again.  Emphasizing that "we must reconnect with nature", that art and the planet are telling us to change our lives, today.

Through the years P.K. formed many friendships with fellow artists, including Jori Smith, Leonora Carrington and Pat Martin Bates, to name only a few.  She also studied with Frank Schaeffer and Charles Selinger.

Her artwork has been collected widely, including The National Gallery of Canada, The Art Gallery Of Ontario, and The Art Galleries of Vancouver and Greater Victoria.

Her prestigious career has earned her numerous awards including eight Honorary Degrees, The Order of British Columbia, a fellow of The Royal Society of Canada, and a companion of The Order of Canada.