Sept. 26 – Oct. 27 | DAVID MARTINELLO | Conversing Gestures (mixed media) + JESSICA SILVEY & MIYUKI SHINKAI | Echo From the Ancestral Land – Past and Present (mixed media)

DAVID MARTINELLO | Conversing Gestures (mixed media)
Featuring abstract wood sculptures and prints combined with gestural markings, this exhibition by David Martinello in the Main Gallery highlights the beauty of wood, its intrinsic characteristics, and its role as a connective node to the environment. The contemplation of wood as an artistic material, and the engagement with the unique and whimsical aspects of its character, allows us to naturally develop an increased appreciation for the world around us and for what it provides. Wood is a material with its own spirit and its own embedded gestures, which inform the impact that it has and inspire Martinello to develop a variety of different techniques as a way to celebrate and muse with its many different lyrical attributes. These expressive qualities and different attributes give this material the ability to enhance our relationships to the environment and the resources that it provides, giving it the potential to change the intent with which people relate to their surroundings.

David Martinello is an artist from Mill Bay, Vancouver Island, who works with a variety of different techniques and mediums. He has exhibited his artwork in group and solo exhibitions on Vancouver Island, the Lower Mainland, and in Ontario, and he also owns and operates a custom furniture business on Vancouver Island. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, and from Queens University, Kingston, Ontario. Working with a multi-disciplinary approach along with conventional manipulations of wood Martinello discerns insights into the essence of the material. He explores its intrinsic properties, highlighting aspects of the medium that are often taken for granted or overlooked.

JESSICA SILVEY & MIYUKI SHINKAI | Echo From the Ancestral Land – Past and Present (mixed media)

Echo from the Ancestral Land – past and present focuses on meaningful encounters and being part of a learning opportunity for viewers. Shinkai and Silvey aim to intrigue viewers, encouraging them to engage and take a moment to think about the past and modernization of the world, what we lost and what we became, how we got here, and what we left behind. They showcase objects of daily life such as bowls, needles, clothing and medicines, which reflect on their own traditional preciousness, uniqueness and connection to nature versus modern convenience, materialism, consumerism, and industrialization. Echo from the Ancestral Land – Past and Present also features weavings and highlights indigenous language revitalization, through the creation of a Japanese calligraphy backdrop with the same message written in Japanese, shíshálh (Sechelt) language and an English translation. This message reflects on our connection to our land and roots; “we are nature.”

Since the last project in 2014 ‘Mind over Matter’ that Jessica Silvey and Miyuki Shinkai worked on together, they see themselves shifting from their art and craft making to mentoring and teaching community members about how we can engage inner selves and embrace spiritual growth through the creative learning process. Engaging with younger generations to pass their knowledge on has been a focus of their life work. Silvey and Shinkai are conscientiously walking on the path to truth and reconciliation to create unity in the community. Both feel that they are in a strong position to take a leadership role in passing their Indigenous/traditional cultural perspectives and wisdom from ancestral knowledge to the next generations.