Life has changed for Tanya Bub the artist.
Her first solo exhibition Creatures Great and Small at the Gage Gallery on Oak Bay Avenue ends Nov. 8.
It is centred on dozens of driftwood sculptures that range from the size of a fist to four-foot tall Daisy the dream-making elephant.
“Someone who knows I collect driftwood brought me this long [curved] piece and said ‘look, it’s an elephant trunk,’” Bub said. “Well, he hasn’t seen Daisy yet, but it’s used to make her [back]. If I had used that piece as her trunk she’d be as big as the room.”
READ ALSO: Artist creates five-foot tall driftwood sculpture of Takaya
Daisy has a hidden bell in her tummy. Feed her a nut and your dream might ring true.
Last year Bub began using wire to sculpt birds as part of a driftwood series. Her wire pieces have comes to life, and are very popular. Actually, most things in her exhibit are popular, as it’s nearly an entire sellout, including the 16-foot long driftwood scene of Dallas Road.
Outside is the “Communitree” exhibit, a wire mesh tree decorated with leaves from the general public. Outside is the driftwood lion which is big but still not as big as her Takaya piece at the Empress Hotel.I am going to donate Daisy and I’m taking suggestions as to where she should go,” Bub said.
Before her art caught on, Bub was a computer programmer and is also the author of Totally Random, a comic book on quantum mechanics published by Princeton University Press. Her next book coming out is called Reimagining Time, a book about relativity, with Yale University Press.
Her exhibition has been so popular that the little Gage Gallery has had lineups out the door.
“[Making art] has turned into a full-time job, yes,” Bub said. “I’ve had too many commission requests to be able to accommodate them all.”
Starting Nov. 10 at Gage Gallery is Martina Edmondson’s third solo show at Gage since moving to Victoria in 2015, Loss. It is inspired by the loss of a Garry oak in front of her home when a diseased tree was removed by the city in 2018.
| Steven Armstrong's Perpetual Motion, an acrylic on 36- by 72-inch canvas, part of his upcoming show at West End Gallery in Victoria. The artist will be in attendance at the Nov. 7 reception, 1 to 3 p.m. (Steven Armstrong Image) |
Starting Nov. 7 in the West End Gallery at the corner of Broad and View streets is Steven Armstrong’s Points of Views: A Selection of Perspectives on Landscapes, until Nov. 19.
Armstrong is a local artist whose paintings explore the rugged landscapes and windy skies of Vancouver Island and offer an opportunity to investigate a deeper relationship with the natural environment, said Amy Boyle of West End Gallery.
“Every painting becomes an individual communication on perspective and paintings become as much about presence as they are about place,” Boyle said. “Understanding a place enough to convey its essence visually is never instantaneous. In his attempt to translate an immediate experience of place through paint on canvas, we enter a dialogue on an emotional and enduring level.”
In his work, lone objects come to represent more than simply trees, rocks, earth, and sky and carry meaning as people relate to them over the passage of time.
Madrona Gallery in Victoria is hosting Nicholas Bott from Nov. 14 to 18, with Bott in house for the opening reception, Nov. 14, from 1 to 3 p.m.
Bott’s work brings a unique post-impressionistic perspective to the Canadian landscape. He is inspired by members from the Group of Seven and other masterful artists from Europe such as Vincent Van Gogh. This is Bott’s ninth solo exhibition at Madrona.
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and like us on Facebook.
