CATHERINE MCAVITY: October 27 to November 9, 2012, Bugera Matheson Gallery, Edmonton

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"Fall Pond"

Catherine McAvity, "Fall Pond," acrylic on canvas, 24” X 24”.

CATHERINE MCAVITY

October 27 to November 9, 2012

Bugera Matheson Gallery, Edmonton

By Jill Sawyer

You can trace Catherine McAvity’s travels around western Canada through her canvases, from coastal British Columbia to lakes and rivers in Saskatchewan. Each one finds a natural landscape, hinted at in light impressions. The Vancouver Island-based painter is originally from Vancouver, and has been painting for 30 years, and her work is in permanent collections including those of the Art Gallery of Alberta, B.C. Lottery Corporation, and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. After graduating from the University of Calgary, she concentrated her work on the vistas of southern Alberta, gradually migrating toward the West Coast. “The landscape of southern Alberta was my first inspiration for painting from nature, and my first real connection to myself as an aspiring artist,” McAvity says in her artist’s statement. “Working with landscape is a potentially hackneyed subject fraught with pitfalls and cliché. It is also one of profound and endless possibility.” In her recent work, including pieces in the upcoming show at Bugera Matheson Gallery, McAvity seems to be drawn to water — views across expanses of ocean bays, lakes, and rivers.