All Things Bright and Beautiful

The Colborne Art Gallery’s annual All Things Bright and Beautiful exhibition opens Saturday, November 20. This show celebrates the oncoming winter season and the festive atmosphere that it generates.

Gallery artists will be exhibiting and selling art work of all sizes and price ranges ... everything from cards and ornaments to art for your walls. Perfect gifts for the art lovers amongst us.

As a special fundraiser this year, tiny 3” x 3” canvasses have been transformed by gallery artists, into one-of-a-kind artworks. These will be available for sale on the day of the opening. All proceeds will go towards the gallery.

Please join us in welcoming the festive season ahead. During the opening reception, from 2 – 4 pm Sat. Nov. 20, enjoy hot cider and an assortment of mouthwatering treats while visiting with the artists, experiencing the creations exhibited…and perhaps completing some Christmas shopping.

Hem of the Sea

"My paintings engage with the land, the light and the sea. They refer to the field lines: the small fields drawn by human lives against a rocky mountain. The fields erase in wind and growth. The light picks up hidden lines and the signs of human work on the land. I pick up a brush and paint the edges, field against field, land against sea and sky. I pick up a brush and aim for the light.”

-Janet Read

Horizontals and Verticals

“The horizontals in this show are all local views, but perhaps not easily recognizable to many. The lake, the marshes and fields, some of which are protected, some quickly vanishing, are all around us - but for how long? The verticals are the trees, trees and yet more trees. The old ones, the young ones, the neglected ones and the teenagers again seen from different viewpoints. Working in a variety of media I have tried to show how diverse is our countryside and how we all can appreciate the many facets that Northumberland County can show us.”

– Anne Wilson, July 2010

From the Forest Floor

“Forest floors are nourishing, life affirming environments both for the undergrowth they contain and for my spirit when I walk through them. The sights, sounds, and smells force me to slow down to appreciate the richness and diversity of life. Welcoming art and fine craft into our lives can also act to enrich our daily lives in a similar way. It can be a reminder to pause and appreciate the richness and diversity of our experience. The motifs used to decorate the ceramic work are inspired by observations during my walks in the woods near my home.”

- Terrie MacDonald, July 2010

Susan Fisher: Open Fields & Gardens

“Where ever I wander or travel, fields and gardens provoke many layers of sensations: the sensation of rhythms and musical sounds; the sense of touch and of movement; of course the sensation of colour – brilliantly stunning or quietly muted. Reaching into the scenes – I extract fragments and weave them together into my interpretation of Nature’s oeuvre.

"Encaustic allows the composition a dynamic wherein the elements can move visually as they would in reality as we experience it.”

-- Susan Fisher, 2010

Edges - Avril Bull

The Colborne Art Gallery is pleased to present Edges, a show by Gallery member Avril Bull

Avril finds edges are something to run along, bump into, climb on to, hang on or fall off.

This show is an exploration in paintings and original prints that encompasses many edges. Those on the edge in school, society and our environment. These edges can be happy , challenging or sad places. Life is edgy.

... "knockout vocals" ... "one of Toronoto's best and businest Celtic musicians" ... "wonderful breathy vocals" ... "atmospheric and sensual performance"

Tickets $20, available at:

Downey Pharmacy, Colborne 905 355-2825
Ganaraska Framing & Art 905 885-1323
George’s Guitars, Cobourg 905 373-1991
The Colborne Art Gallery 905 355-1798

Alf Blything Retrospective

A retrospective is the opportunity to take a walk through Alf’s exploration of the art world. Always with a natural artistic ability, Alf put his first brush to canvas in 1957 with a painting of his then fiancé. It would be a further 30 years before ill health forced him to slow down and take up art as therapy.

Taking lessons with various local art teachers he sought his inspiration from photographs taken by himself of various locations which caught his attention. He soon found that his mind provided more inspiration than anything else and he branched out into fanciful landscapes. Graphics were always his first love and doodles from that period show where his art work will lead.

Bypass surgery in 1992 gave him a new perspective and his morphine induced faces from that period show how his mind was affected by that experience. A spiritual theme was present in many of his later artworks and of course his sense of humour always showed through.

His later years were filled with his ink and graphite drawings, his first and last choice of materials.

Black & White

Introducing Black and White, a theme show by the artists of the Colborne Art Gallery.

What happens when an artist is given a theme to work within, does this limit their creativity or push it to unexplored levels? The members of the Colborne Art Gallery are working with a theme in mind for their upcoming show, simply entitled Black and White.

Perhaps the obvious outcome is that all the work will be without colour; paintings, prints, ceramics, sculpture, even jewelry in a black and white palette. A strong and dramatic effect for certain. Perhaps the theme will go further for some, influencing the subject matter, playing with the tension between opposites, as implied by the title.

The theme was suggested by recently retired gallery member Alison Seale. Alison remembered a conversation with the late Peter Kolisnyk, a local artist and teacher who worked in a minimalist style. In the words of a recent Globe and Mail article, "Mr. Kolisnyk experimented with colour-field paintings, and then began to embrace the fullness of white and the emptiness of black."

Kolisnyk suggested to his Cobourg class that a show all in black and white would have a strong impact, but Alison recalls that the students at that time rejected the idea. The concept captured Alison’s imagination and when suggested to the Colborne Art Gallery collective, they took on the challenge.

Black and White opens January 23, 2010 with an opening reception from 2-4 pm, and runs until March 7, 2010. Join us and discover how each artist interprets the theme of contrasts along with a selection of other new works, all by the members of the Colborne Art Gallery.