Jill Thomson
Be sure to check out the Gallery Reception on Wednesday, March 7. Details Here.
Artist Bio
Jill Thomson's artwork evokes her personal history of a small town/prairie childhood, an urban Montreal young adulthood and a settled life as artist and mother of three in Edmonton. Her rich colourful palette and complex compositions celebrate a creative life in cities with generous front porches, cafes, bookstores, bicycle paths, gardens and ravines.
She received her BFA from Concordia University in Montreal. She is represented by Gibson Fine Art in Calgary and AGA Art Rental and Sales in Edmonton. She has work in the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and in international public and private collections.
Thomson’s neighbourhood painting for Premier Rachel Notley depicts the Legislature from a Strathcona neighbourhood perspective, and hangs in the Premier’s Office in the Alberta Legislature. “Edmonton Neighbourhood” was purchased by the Edmonton Arts Council as a gift for their capital campaign and hangs in Edmonton City Hall. Nine of her paintings are featured in a permanent alleyway mural for the Alberta Ave Alley Project, as part of the revitalization of Alberta Avenue. Her painting, “Heritage Quarter” was brought to life as the setting for three operas in a collaborative video projection project with Mercury Opera and Guru Digital and was recently screened in opera festivals in the UK and Ukraine.
Check out more by Jill Thomson here.
Sara Norquay
Artist Bio
Born in Edmonton, raised in Toronto, Sara trained as an artist at the Alberta College of Art and
developed her art career in Santa Barbara, California where she lived for 20 years.
She has been making artist books since 2001. Her books have been made in different mediums including printmaking techniques, drawing and painting, stitching and painting on fabric, mixed media and digital printing. Some books are one-of- a-kind while others have been made in small editions. She also makes fine art prints and works with felt. Moving back to Canada in 2009, she writes short stories and exhibits her work in Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, and California.
The Coats Project: A coat is a necessity of life in the north. Most of us have several coats to keep us warm and dry from the variety of temperatures we live in throughout the year. The coat can also symbolize or be a metaphor for comfort, protection, public identity, memory, and aspiration. In this series, the coat connects with an earlier series of prints representing the four elements: earth, water, air and fire. These prints are collaged relief prints: woodcuts and linocuts.