Avis Rasmussen - Paris, Provence Paintings
Preview Saturday, November 1, 2008 10 am - 5:30 pm
(work subject to prior sale)
Opening Reception Sunday,November 2,2008 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Artist in attendance; Elizabeth Ely, harpist
Exhibition continues until November 22, 2008
Avis Rasmussen is a Victoria artist and printmaker 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 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. Before Emma Lake (1992) her influences from John Dobereiner, Don Harvey, Pat Martin Bates and a litany of fellow artists shaped her path(as Carr’s path) to paint France and Italy, then come home with fresh eyes. Rasmussen’s contemporaries, Yaz Kriebel, Hugh Mackenzie, and Daniel Lang express investment in Rasmussen’s sheer will to overcome all adversity and paint in her way, what she sees and experiences. Both oil paintings and watercolours from 2008 have been selected as she painted ”live” and “on site” in the very places the impressionists painted. St. Remy’s van Gogh scenery, Arle’s bridges, Roman buildings and gardens, Marseille’s harbour boats and ancient vantages; the subjects all speak through the paint. Through Avis Rasmussen’s colourful world you can see how these places are distinguished in a completely refreshing way.
Roland Rasmussen