Jean Bradbury is creating a transformative visual experience as you step into her exhibition at the Hearth Gallery in Snug Cove from August 14 to September 2.
The center of the gallery will be an immersive forest of life sized tree trunks. These eight foot tall cylindrical columns are painted to celebrate the distinctive bark patterns of our local native tree species, expressing care for the ecosystem of our forest, and highlighting colors that are bright and bold.
Jean was born on a small Scottish island and raised in rural New Brunswick. She has a deep affinity for natural rural places and islands! She uses her paintings of natural environments to celebrate the plant and animal life, referencing the beauty of Bowen.
Jean works in oil and acrylic on cut plywood and describes the unusual organic shaped substrates as a rejection of the man-made sharp angles that surround us. Her art aims at finding a way to cohesively live with nature and the creatures that already reside there, without damaging their homes.
Jean’s show examines the experience of purchasing and owning a small undeveloped piece of land on Bowen Island and the responsibility of the new plant and animal relationships that inhabit that space.
She asks “How can I live on land without evicting the current tenants – the birds, mammals, reptiles, plants and fungus that all had prior claim to my so-called: empty lot?”
The show runs until Monday, September 2, with an Artist pARTy with Jean at the Hearth Gallery on Saturday, August 17 from 6 to 8 pm.
