On Saturday Al and I went in to Vancouver to attend Renée Van Halm’s opening at Equinox Gallery http://www.equinoxgallery.com/exhibitions/. This was our first visit to the gallery’s new enormous space in a converted warehouse off Great Northern Way. The area has been divided into two large, very high-ceilinged exhibition spaces. On this afternoon there were two openings, Renée Van Halm: French Curves  in the East Gallery and Al McWilliams: Stone Drawings in the West.

Renée’s show features mainly her smaller works on canvas or paper, with just a few of her very large paintings. Gallery assistant and fellow potter Ron Vallis suggested I could take general photos of both shows. If you can get in to see the show pick up the useful information sheet which explains the ideas behind Renée’s work and gives a brief biography. The gallery’s website has many of the pieces for you to have a better look.

I find myself delighted with the paintings.I enjoy seeing the recognizable images contained in areas of elegant flat colour. Having seen how she works here in my studio when painting a plate it was interesting to imagine the process on a much larger scale. In my photos the row of white-framed paintings are gouache on paper and all the others are acrylic on canvas.

I’m also posting our photo of one of Renée’s little plates to show how well the work translates to a three-dimensional surface.

We enjoyed meeting several of the other artists who’ve been out here working, and some other friends. I’ll leave the photos un-captioned but you may recognize some people! I’m glad we finally found our way to the Equinox Gallery as it used to be a regular stop on our Saturday afternoon wanderings at its old location on South Granville street.

Congratulations Renée on a fabulous show and thank you for inviting us.