Two painters recently arrived in the Semiahmoo Peninsula area are among more than 100 artists whose work is featured this weekend and next at the 38th annual Arnold Mikelson Festival of Arts.
Painters April Lacheur and David Patterson will both be bringing their highly individualistic, simplified approaches to landscapes and natural subjects to the annual festival, which returns to the Mind and Matter Gallery, 13743 16 Ave., July 9-10 and July 16-17.
In addition to paintings, the festival also highlights pottery, wood sculpture, stone sculpture, glass blowing, batiks and jewelry.
Lacheur, who moved from Vancouver Island to White Rock last summer, is taking part in the festival for her second year.
She said the three-acre forest-setting of the festival is a perfect complement to her tree paintings, which are executed in a style employing bold colours and clean lines.
Among her favourite subjects are whimsical trees with twisting roots, but she also paints long-legged birds and bright florals.
In addition to original paintings she will also
be selling a selection of art cards and prints.
For examples of Lacheur’s style, visit www.yapespaints.com
The Vancouver-born Patterson, who moved to the area last year from the Burnaby area, has also previously exhibited work in the Mikelson festival.
A keen musician as well as a painter, he has developed a unique manner of working with oil paint and sand to create textured canvases that bring out light and depth of form with unusual vibrancy.
His evolving style emphasizes symmetrical, mirror-image compositions to create almost dream-like landscapes, while even his abstracts exhibit a similar passion for simplified forms.
“Nature is always an ever-present element in my work,” he said in a statement.
“Painting for me is the blending of the outside world with the inside world and expressing those feelings onto a two-dimensional surface.”
For more information and examples of Patterson’s work, visit www. pattersonpaintings.com
For more information about the Arnold Mikelson Festival of Arts, visit www.mindandmatterart.com