View past and current newsletter HERE

Victoria Arts Council in partnership with the Bay Centre presents:

Art Victoria Now

11 - 31 May 2024

Juried exhibition featuring 50 local artists

Community Celebration & Opening Reception

Saturday, May 11, 2-5pm

at The Bay Centre, lower level

This is but a small homage to my friend and teacher, the irrepressible Victoria artist Pat Martin Bates who introduced me to Islamic patterning.

This annual exhibition at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria is here again. Gallery release below with all the information...this year the show runs from June 13 through August 31.

More Blessed Than We Know

The Chapel Gallery

May 24 -June 8 2024

Opening reception May 24, 6-9pm

Artist’s Talk 7pm

The Chapel Gallery at St Matthias Church, 600 Richmond Ave, Victoria
Gallery Hours: Saturday, Sundays 11am-2pm.
Artist in attendance Saturdays

...

“GIFTS OF MADNESS” is about breaking the silence surrounding mental illness and combating the stigma, prejudice, and discrimination against individuals with mental health conditions. We are excited to see the compelling narratives that will undoubtedly emerge from this exhibition, affirming the incredible strength and power inherent in artistic expression, mirrored through your personal experiences and artwork. This exhibition will stand as a poignant testament to our collective resilience, creativity, and the profound influence the arts wield on our mental health and well-being.

- Penticton Art Gallery

PRINT:imPRESSions The Victoria Society of PRINT Artists

March 9th to March 24th , Gallery open weekends from 12-4.

770B Hillside Avenue, Victoria, BC

Opening night Friday March 8th from 7-9pm

An exhibition of prints by members of The Victoria Society of Print Artists. Also included will be prints from the annual PRINT exchange, copies of the PRINTgallery publication, and prints from the archives.

More info HERE

The Sum of Our Parts

Samantha Dickie, Laura Dutton, Roberta Pyx Sutherland

September 29 - November 4, 2023

Fridays 2-6pm, Saturdays 12-6pm

Happy to be in this exhibition at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria once again!

Gallery release below with all the information...the show runs from June 8 through August 26.

Back by popular demand, our annual Summer Small Works Show and Sale is opening this June! This is our favourite time of the year at the Gallery because this beloved Show & Sale brings such vibrancy and buzz to the Massey Sales Gallery. With a range of unique works at accessible price points, there is something for everyone. These works sell fast, so if you find something you like, don’t wait!

“I still get excited for the small works show,” says Karen Cooper, Art Rental & Sales Consultant, “as I am always impressed by what our amazing community of artists has created. This year is no exception!”

The opening reception is on June 8, from 5-8 pm, and the Show & Sale runs to August 26.

Opening night is always fun with many local artists, friends and family and of course, fabulous original art! Featuring original works by local artists you will find a range of styles on offer. Get the first look at the works and mingle with the artists with some snacks and refreshments. Find more information about the opening reception here.

Diving into the subject of motherhood and the creative process, whether an artists and a mother, a child of an artist, or an observer, this exhibition asks members to reflect on the challenges, joys and clichés associated with motherhood and the role of an artist.

- LCAG

the Mother(load)

Lake Country Art Gallery

March 11 to April 30, 2023

10356A Bottom Wood Lake Rd, Lake Country, BC

GALLERY LINK

ESSAY BY BREE APERLEY

Forty Nine artists responded to the theme - thank you to the following Gallery Members for taking part in this exhibition:

Alice Pallett; Alison Beaumont; Amber Powell; Amy Bradshaw; Angela Hansen; Angelina Rosa; Anke Sabo; Carley Rangen; Carney Oudendag; Caron Smed; Ceren McKay; Courts Champion; Denise Patrick; Destanne Norris; Devon L Muhlert; Erin Scott; Eveline Wallace; Faye Eden; Heather Burton; Jacqueline Rieger; Jill Meredith; JG Touchstone; Judith Hamilton; Joyful ArtHouse Kids; Karen Stewart; Kate Brown; Kelsie Balehowsky; Kerry McLeod; Lisa Figueroa; Lynette Stebner; Margaret Kyle; Marlene McPherson; Maureen Kaczkowski; Michelle Droettboom; Olya Krasavina; Pamela Cinnamon; Paulette Deyholes; Pippa Dean-Veerman; Rena Warren + Larkin Dunn Warren; Rhonda Giesbrecht; Roberta Pyx Sutherland; Roxana Meaney; Sara Wiens; Stefanie Denz; Suzanne Chavarie; Tess Letailleur; Tim Vant; Yolanda Robinson

Below is new work that appeared in the exhibition at this year's HerringFest on Hornby Island, March 2 - 4, at the Hornby Island Arts Council.

Not far in our past is precious Emily. I’ve gathered a collection of my landscape drawings, especially the forest series, to honour her. I invite you to the exhibition opening March 3rd at CARR HOUSE.

The Zen of Emily

Opening March 3, 1-4pm
Continues to April 15
Fridays & Saturdays from 10am - 4pm
CARR HOUSE, 207 Government St.

LINK

Her profound bond with nature my lifetime inspiration. Here is one of my Emily poems from Rites of Passage...

A silent simple
white room,
my ten year old length
stretches revel fill
a cool dark bench
I lie alone staring
believing blinking
green deeps receive me
surrounded enfolded
massive trunks
heft of boughs
tangle a moss dark world
Emily takes me.

We are enlisted
in wordless wildness
welcome magnificence
gut fresh free
forest portals
burst alive skies
sing indigo rings.

Summoning serious
voices arrive
jolt rigid
stand command

We are sure
your daughter
is still here
we did not
see her leave
the Emily Carr Room

Sat, Nov 26th, 2022

Thanks to everyone who attended the Hornby Studio Tour this year.

It was a treat to meet old friends again - grateful to those still collecting. It was wonderful to see you.

Opening Reception

Our annual Winter Small Works Show & Sale is back! Featuring original works by local artists, you will find a range of styles on offer. Join us for the Opening Reception on November 17 from 5-8PM where you can get the first look at the works and mingle with the artists

Art Gallery of Greater Victoria

1040 Moss Street
Victoria, British Columbia

What a beautiful weekend to be in David Hunwick's sculpture garden, originally Elza Mayhew's garden (the diva of Canadian sculpture).

Thanks to all those who attended. We had fun conversations and glad to watch the drawings go to new homes.

Brush Dance

August 8 - August 12

Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts

This workshop explores the dynamic tradition of the brush as a rewarding tool for experimentation and contemplation. We will explore and develop a personal brush language as we use the breath to support spontaneous mark making. Combining mark-making within surfaces of layered fibre (cloth and paper) for use in artist books, banners, cards and paper installations, participants will have opportunities to reflect on insights gained through repetition of asemic scripts and mandala practice.

For more information and to register visit the MISSA website.

Greater Silence makes an appearance on @theculturium from the United Kingdom.⁠

“At every level, physical, subtle & causal
there are invisible patterns of unity & oneness
interconnecting all the worlds.”

—Hans Jenny, physician & natural scientist

ROBERTA PYX SUTHERLAND is a Canadian artist based in Victoria, British Columbia. From her first solo exhibition at the Victoria Art Gallery in the 1980s, her work has focused on the relationships of cosmic patterning, divine intelligence, the environment and the interconnectivity of all life forms. She has worked for Oxfam in East Africa, where she initiated a ceramic school, as well as studied Zen and calligraphy in Japan and mandala painting in Boudnath, Nepal.

KEEP READING

On Saturday, April 2 2022 at 2 p.m. Eastern Time, join us as we bring together poets from all over in a special Oh!Sound National Poetry Month online celebration of poetry in response to precarious events in the world.

JOIN HERE

Archipel Butor helps to celebrate 50 years of Editart in Geneva. So very proud to be among their stable of artists.

Founded in 1971 by Dolores and Orlando Blanco, Editart showcases the work of famous contemporary artists as well as young talent.

Since its creation, the Geneva-based publishing house has published around a hundred illustrated books that bring painters and sculptors into dialogue with writers and poets.

Thus, for example, Michel Butor comes to collaborate with Baruj Salinas, Jean Starobinski with Garache, Haldas with Vladimir Veličković, Yves Bonnefoy with Zao Wou-Ki, Valente with Paul Rebeyrolle, Sylviane Dupuis with Roberta Sutherland, Vahé Godel with Thierry Bourquin or Maria Zambrano with Amadeo Gabino and Eduardo Chillida.

According to Vahé Godel, Editart is "a kind of international laboratory where painters, writers and printers build joint ventures."

Editart has also published more than a hundred prints by artists including Calder, Miró, Koraïchi, Tàpies, Zao Wou-Ki (lithographs, etchings, serigraphs or woodcuts), collaborating with the best workshops (Switzerland, Italy, France and Spain).

In addition to this activity, Editart also has a collection of works of art (manuscripts, engravings and sculptures) which will also be partly presented in the Manoir des livres exhibition.

More information HERE

Friend Zone

Group exhibition

Atlantic Works Gallery, Boston

A group show of work by Gallery members and our friends, featuring The Dead Mask Project, an international collection of photographs curated by member X Bonnie Woods.

Opening Reception: Thursday, July 15, from 6-9 pm
Closing Reception: Thursday, August 19, from 6-9 pm

Please to announce a show with the AGGV's Massey Sales Gallery opening June 19.

"We are so pleased to announce that our annual Summer Small Works Show & Sale will be online and on display at the Massey Sales Gallery this year!

Show & Sale runs from June 19 – August 27, 2021

Stay tuned for more info!"

LINK

The following article is included in an upcoming catalogue documenting the Tea Bowl series to be launched on Hornby this summer.

World's Fair

The sound of grating metal punctuated the morning stillness. Security guards pulled back the fairground barriers

I intended to be there, very early, before a line formed, to attend the first ceremony of the day. The details were available in the glossy brochure, ‘First come first served’. The entrance crowd thinned. It seemed other visitors were going other places. The tiny map was vague but the direct route to the Japanese Pavilion I visualized was accurate enough. I sat alone and early in a cool corridor to wait.

An exquisite young woman in elaborate floral kimono, bowing so deeply I barely saw her face, ushered me behind the pavilion to a small shed-like building. Still bowing, she departed. I removed my shoes and crouched to enter.

The vast emptiness of this tiny space, with only a scroll and a single flower, was revolutionary. The depth of the gentle silence was palpable. I stood on a fragrant straw mat. My stocking feet registered woven texture. I felt blissfully naked though I’d not removed my clothing. Could this be heaven?

The tea house walls were plastered in rich ochre. A seated figure in slate grey robes gestured to his right as he nodded in greeting. I kneeled to occupy my cushion, a thin black silk square. He slowly stirred the live coals of a welcome fire. Steam rose from a delicate black iron kettle. The ritualized movements, the preparations that create a tea ceremony began. Then when the tea, drill-sharp green, frothed in a pearly grey bowl, I bowed to accept it. The tea master’s fluid movements were hypnotic. We had no need for conversation, he could no doubt tell I was mesmerized, under the spell of ceremony, all beyond time and space.

Decades have passed since the spacious peace of the spring morning in the tea house. I had no language in 1962 to describe how my brain stored that vivid experience. Today much more is understood how a memory is lodged and timelessly retained. Yet it is the surprise, of my Covid isolation, to have this tea encounter trigger a new series of paintings after such a prolonged gestation.

Each image is an assemblage created from my folders of ephemera. It is fitting these pieces are created from remnants accumulated over years.

A perfect use for the collected calligraphies, patterned papers, saved textures

and sketchbook pages.

In recent pieces the tea bowls are placed within landscapes, steam rises from them, the vapours join and become one with the clouds. This merging reflects the interconnectedness of all things. Thich Nat Han, a beloved contemporary Buddhist master addressed this when he held up a schedule saying, ’there isn’t a way I can get rid of this sheet of paper. If I burn it, there will be ash remaining, it will become earth, the earth will grow trees, they will become more paper. You see, everything is inter-being.

This work is about our relationship to big ideas through the small and ordinary. How, with focused attention, we may see the sacred displayed in the mundane, and know the Zen of being completely in the moment.

New work for the Herring Fest on Hornby Island.

Link

Work from Mykis and a new essay appear in the winter issue 8 of the Victoria Art Council's UNTIL Magazine, pages 14, 15

Link

On Thursday, September 24th, 2020 at 5:00 p.m., the annual International Contemporary Art Exhibition 2020 will be launched at the prestigious Art Gallery Le Logge, in the historical town of Assisi UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The exhibition, which will run through the 27th of September, includes all the works produced by the selected artists and writers worldwide.

A range of artistic disciplines from the literary, visual, and performing arts will be displayed.

- Press release, Arte Studio Ginestrelle

August 1-31, 2020

11am-2pm daily (except Sunday)

3460 Harwood Road

Hornby Island, BC

Covid protocols in place. Dog friendly

ART GALLERY OF GREATER VICTORIA
Summer Small Works Show & Sale at the Massey Gallery
Opens June 18 and runs until August 15, 2020.

New catalogue release from Editart
Avenue des Cavaliers 25, 1224 Chêne-Bougeries, Switzerland

Beyond the Archive: Ground Zero Printmakers Studio 1989-2019
Celebrating 30 Years of West Coast Print Culture

February 29 - April 4, 2020
Open Tues through Sat 12-5pm
Victoria Arts Council, 1800 Store St

Opening Reception
Sat, Feb 29 3-5pm

If you are in Victoria and would like to meet and tour the exhibition with me, we could do that...April 1 (no kidding) from 2:00-4:30 or April 4 from 12:00-2:30
- RPS

 

An early notice for those who like to plan well ahead...July 6-10 I will be offering a 5 day workshop ‘Brush Dance -Line Dance’ at M.I.S.S.A. (Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts).

I attended a generous gesture at Open Space. 20 Vancouver Island artists met with as many local curators, professors and art programmers to share their work and projects, followed by refreshments!

Dec 5th, 7-9pm
Open Space
510 Fort St, Victoria BC

BODY LANGUAGE returns to celebrate and support Suddenly Dance Theatre in its 27th season. This visual art exhibition and fundraiser features a dynamic collection of donated works by an exceptional group of 24 artists.
 
We ask: How do you interpret the body and its expression through movement, gesture, form, or spirit? How does this ‘dance’ impact you?
 
The exhibition will be available online below as of November 19, 2019 in which customers can make a direct purchase. Proceeds from this event will help Suddenly Dance Theatre (a charitable non-profit) support dancers, artists, and technicians in Victoria, BC.
- Suddenly Dance

Artist Talk and Demo of soft pastel making at Caetani Studio Gallery
Sunday, Nov 10 1pm

3401 Pleasant Valley Road, Vernon

Join Artist-in-Residence Roberta Pyx Sutherland for an exhibit of her work:
Mycophilia, Volume II. This show will feature Mushroom spore prints, a continuation on the work Sutherland started here at the Caetani Centre last year.
- Caetani Studio Gallery

November 8th through 11th
Exhibit Intro with Artist: Nov 8,  7:30pm

 

In the Present Moment: Buddhism, Contemporary Art and Social Practice was a creative and remarkably successful convening led by AGGV Curator Haema Sivanesan. The project took a chronological and thematic approach towards examining the impact of Buddhism on art in North America from the post-war period to the present. 

Oct 25-29, 2019

I hope you'll be in Victoria for October 24th for the opening of Spot On!, where I'm collaborating with my long time friend, ceramic artist Peter Flanagan. The circle is our symbol of completion, perfection, and the inclusivity of the universe. We are exploring the never ending, remarkable and symbolic circle.

Spot On!
Peter Flanagan & Roberta Pyx Sutherland
October 24 - November 17
Opening reception Thursday, October 24  5-7pm

Fortune Gallery
537 Fisgard St, Victoria, BC

Thanks to everyone who came out - especially those who dressed the part!

New Works
Gallery in the Woods
Hornby Island

August 27 to September 8
Opening reception August 29 at 6pm

Come and see the latest pieces, discuss your special projects and ideas regarding interior design and collaborations.  

Studio hours: Saturdays & Wednesdays 11:00 - 2:00
Also, August...say hello if you are on the island, the Hornby Art Crawl is the 4th from 10-4...the tea pot will be on.

Directions:
Drive straight down the hill from the market to find 3460 Harwood Rd. (watch for the sculptures on the boulevard). Find a map at the end of this newsletter.
Remember you are welcome to visit the studio on your schedule by calling 250 818 6560.

As Above So Below II
March 15 - April 19, 2019
Opening reception Friday March 15, 5-7pm
Artist’s Talk at 5:30pm

Exhibition preview

The Chapel Gallery at St Matthias Church, 600 Richmond Ave, Victoria
Gallery Hours: Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday 10am-2pm.
Artist in attendance most Saturdays

This exhibition will mark the season of Lent and is a departure from more familiar Good Friday traditions. Here my references to the Christian story are distilled and contemporary. The installation draws inspiration from Buddhism as well as mystical Christianity. The pieces are monochromatic and focus on the circle as potent symbol. The work is not decorative but invites contemplation. I evoke the numinous through meditative ink drawings.

It was a bold move for the church and Rev. Meagan Crosby Shearer to renovate the chapel into a gallery but from the community response of more than a hundred people attending the artist talks at Galleryopenings it’s a welcome addition to Victoria’s exhibition venues.

Overt Christian themes are not requested but instead the work of artists who rely on some aspect of their own spiritual practice for inspiration.

I feel this criteria applies to my work. Years of Zen study led to the practice of spontaneously painted ink circles which have now come to include Christian symbology. In this installation, ‘As Above So Below II’, the work walks a line where symbolism and abstraction intersect. It offers a re-boot, if you will, on the observance of Lent.

- RPS

IMPACT Sustainability Travel & Tourism 2019 Conference

Victoria Conference Centre
720 Douglas Street
Victoria, BC

January 20-23, 2019

Wabi-Sabi

Group exhibition
Atlantic Works Gallery
Boston MA, USA

February 9 - March 2, 2019

Image details:
3 scrolls, various titles and dimensions
All ink on collaged handmade Japanese Washi paper with perspex 

Sole Train to the Night Market

John Fluevog Victoria
556 Johnson Street
Victoria, BC

November 15-30, 2018

Pop-up exhibition Drawn by Spores Spatter at the Vernon Caetani Centre Gallery. Thanks to all who came to the opening, the artist talk and to the staff for the wonderful support during my residency.
 

"In this week’s guest post for The Culturium, Roberta details her passion for painting and the visual arts and the way in which they help our understanding of the mystical realm."
- The Culturium

One of three pieces juried into the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria's Summer Small Works Show.
Opens Thursday June 7, 6-9 pm
Continues through August 31

Time Keeping
Acrylic on canvas
48x48 inches

From the Out of Stillness series, this work is on its way to the art rental program at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.

‘Israeli Music’ May 15-June 1 
Gertrude Zack Gallery 
Vancouver Canada

My first attempt at synesthesia, dedicated to Philip Glass and his ‘Etude 20’.  Part of this event is a silent auction continuing throughout the exhibition.

Image:
Etude#20....Philip Glass 
11x14 inches (28x36cm) on panel
Ink with acrylic on Japanese paper