Longtime watercolour artist Sheryl Fremlin continues to explore new art forms in her new show, Collages and Mixed Media, now at the Showcase Gallery.
Running throughout the month of October, the show is made up of a dozen of Fremlin’s recent paintings. These include her regular watercolours but the stars of the show are her recent mixed media and collage works.
“I enjoy experimenting with the collage because it gives me something new to do and it’s exciting to try something new,” Fremlin said. “Because of that and being inspired by that different subject matter, it makes me excited to go back and do watercolours again.”
For her collages, she’ll use pieces of old articles, books and pictures along with acrylic paintings painted by her. Included in her show will be one of Fremlin’s most recent collage works, a piece that tackles slavery. Fremlin said she had been thinking about the subject a lot recently and decided to express some of her thoughts through her art.
The collage is based around a painting of a blackbird silhouetted by the moon with the lyrics to the Beatles song Blacks Birds Singing in the Dead of Night printed on it. Below the moon, Fremlin painted a pathway through a forest with a photo of two small African-American children standing on the path. Included in the path and scattered throughout the trees are maps and contemporary articles about the Underground Railroad, a system that helped escaped slaves flee from America to Canada.
“That was an experimental piece that was somewhat successful, I think.”
On the watercolour front, Fremlin said she’s including some recent paintings of orchards. It was her first time painting an orchard which, without being able to see the interior of one of the flowers, proved to be an interesting challenge.
“I just had to go with the flow and be a bit impressionistic but it was fun to do. I also did a very dark background which I don’t normally do but it worked really well for that particular painting.”
Fremlin said that painting watercolours after she works on a collage piece seems much easier and has helped her loosen up on how she paints.
As a signature member of the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour with 30 years of experience, Fremlin used to be fairly conservative in her paintings.
“I enjoy watercolour because of the luminosity and the effect of a wet on wet wash, you get very interesting and unique effects. If you’re a purist you’re supposed to save the whites of a paper which takes quite a lot of planning,” Fremlin said. “I’ve become less of a purist lately. It’s more freeing and good for someone who has been painting as long as I have to do new things and experiment.”
Getting the chance to do a solo show in the Showcase Gallery is always a welcome one, Fremlin said.
In addition to getting feedback from the community on her art, she’ll even sell a painting from time to time. She encourages the whole community to come out and check out the show from Oct. 3 to Nov. 7.
