NEW MEMBER ARTISTS

   Six new Mad and Noisy artists are showing some of their works at the Gallery throughout February.  A broad range of 2-dimensional media and varied approaches to subject-matter and content make for full and exciting wall displays,  and in addition to these some unconventional designs in wood furnishings round off the show.
    Brian Barrer, creative photographer, looks around him, selects his image and expands it into a new creation which often juxtapositions raw nature with "modernized nature", to create his particular form of surrealism.
     Painter Sue Belcher's landscapes and scenes in oil on canvas use form and colour to create images that recall for the viewer, a memory jog to past times and places in every-day lives.  She often works on large canvases with the palette knife and her feelings,  and proceeds to take her compositions through many stages to its finale.
     Pauline Bradshaw's paintings, by contrast, relate quite directly to the western art world's traditional masterpieces, particularly 19th c. French and British academic artists.  She uses their labour-intensive, classical techniques in oil on canvas to produce  romantic still-lifes which evoke the nostalgic richness of  past eras.
     Local Creemore artist Jordan Eveland favours groups of small and intricate works, all of them simply and decoratively composed, of motifs from nature which link together beautifully.  Her multi-media explorations include kiln-fired jewellery.
     Brett Lundy of Merganzer Furniture and Design in Toronto, makes pieces which demonstrate a perfect balance of form and function; art to use and pass on to future generations.  Brett uses traditional construction techniques to create elegant, organic, contemporary furnishings in the most beautiful of woods and finishes.
     Peter Miehm, a recent retiree from professorship at Georgian's School of Design & Visual Art in Barrie, now calls himself a "painter in pastels", but he also uses acrylic on canvas.  Whatever the medium, he is a talented super-realist whose creative process takes him through many stages from photos, then working drawings, ultimately to the final composition of studies in nature.  In his earlier career he worked as a commercial artist in Vancouver, before he trained as a teacher.

      The Mad and Noisy Gallery welcomes all these wonderful artists who will add new dimensions to the gallery's collective spirit.  If you weren't at the opening on Saturday, be sure to come by with enough time to take it all in;  it's a great show.