Jewellery designer Dianne Rodger and oil painter Maria Josenhans wrap up the month of August for the Avenue Gallery.
Rodger, a self-taught designer, has been crafting jewellery since childhood and continues to hold a great appreciation for the craft, as well as a love of working with her hands. After studying gemmology in 2009, she earned her professional certification from the Canadian Gemmological Association in Toronto, before continuing her studies in a world-renowned jewellery-appraising program at the California Institute of Jewelry Training. Designing intricate, classic jewellery ever since, a range of Rodger’s works can be found at the Avenue Gallery until Aug. 23.
Aug. 23 through 30, Josenhans displays her oil-on-canvas works at the gallery, which often emanate the West Coast in her continual drive to “connect and reconnect with the natural world” in each painting she undertakes. Josenhans has practiced art for more than three decades, training at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA in the 1980s and finding inspiration for her paintings in long-term travel, dance and large format photography. She has also taken part in several Invitational Plein Air events including Paint the Peninsula in Washington and Paint the Mountain in West Vancouver. She is the recipient of the 2015 Don S. Williams Grant, the grand prize winner of the Kilby Plein Air Festival, the 2012 winner of the Plein Air Challenge, the 2008 recipient of the Stafford Plant Award, among other prominent honourable mentions and runner-ups. Her works have appeared in Canada, the United States, England and Italy.
In painting, Josenhans aims not to have the viewer experience what she sees and feels, but rather “to create a space that shares a tender tribute to the ordinary.”
Visit the Avenue Gallery at 2184 Oak Bay Avenue.
