Helen Kellington has always had an eye for design and how objects interact with one another.
These are the skills that she has used to capture several fascinating moments around her home over the past few years to create the latest display at the Showcase Gallery.
“Drawing is part of being a good architect and for me, to produce a good painting, you have to know how to draw. I think that’s the strength of my paintings,” said Kellington, a retired architect and interior designer from the UK. “My paintings are not pretty paintings, they’re like puzzles. You have to look into them to find out what’s going on.”
One of the paintings Kellington was most happy with was a painting of some glasses on a table in her house. She took great pains to paint the reflective quality of glass and how it influenced the shape of the chair backs behind them.
Kellington said glasses can do some interesting things visually, especially when several are stacked together. They can distort light, bend shapes and deconstruct items.
Another painting in this style is that of a family toast. Kellington said she wants her audience to take their time figuring out how many hands and glasses are depicted to get a sense of the effort she put into the piece.
“It’s not a ‘drive-by look’ you have to study them. That’s what I like people to do, to study the paintings and find out the story in all of them.”
Several of the other paintings she brought to the Showcase are less abstract than her glass pieces and include still life and an architectural-themed sketch. Kellington said she doesn’t have a theme or title for her show, preferring instead to think of it as a sample of her recent work.
In addition to being a member of the Cariboo Artists’ Guild, Kellington also recently became an associate of the Federation of Canadian Artists. She encourages the entire community to check out her work, which will be hung until the first Tuesday of May.
patrick.davies@100milefreepress.net
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
