A journey of emotions and memories

Paintings and mixed media art at Amelia Douglas Gallery

By Cheryl Minns, Arts Editor

Faces, fabric, and frogs are on display at the Amelia Douglas Gallery as part of Paul Burgoyne’s exhibit, Journey, a collection of artwork that showcases his evolution as an artist. The exhibit features abstract, figure, and landscape paintings as well as mixed media art.

“I feel compelled to produce experimental pieces, as though diversity and chance are what defines my work,” Burgoyne wrote in his artist’s statement in the exhibit catalogue, available in the Amelia Douglas Gallery.

The centrepiece of the exhibit is its namesake, “Journey,” a conceptual painting that was inspired by the death of a close friend and explores the meaning of an individual’s life. The piece features a well-dressed man walking along a path through time and space with representations all around him of love, family, greed, gluttony, and more.

Other artwork in the gallery was also influenced by Burgoyne’s memories, such as “Barns XXVII,” a painting that captures the landscape he saw growing up on the prairies, and “Pool Party,” a mixed media piece inspired by a friend’s unconventional use of a swimming pool.

“He couldn’t swim, so he turned it into a fishpond. Then he threw in bathtub toys,” Burgoyne said during his talk at the gallery on February 20. The artwork shows a koi fish in water with miniature rubber ducks made of clay.

Burgoyne also included clay figures in his three-dimensional, mixed media piece “Twelve French Flavours,” which consists of 12 colourful frogs lined up in rows. The piece was influenced by his memories of growing up around frogs, which were all around a lake he used to walk by.

Along with using acrylic, oil, clay, epoxy, and other materials in his works, Burgoyne used Indian print fabric in the piece “Roulette” and accented it with laser-cut mirrors and about 3,500 Swarovski crystals in stylized patterns.

“I walked into an Indian fabric store and I discovered this piece of fabric. It was so sparkly and, like a pearl, I gave it a shine,” he said during his talk, noting the embellishments he added to the artwork.

Most of the artwork in the Journey exhibit is for sale, ranging from $850 to $9,500 per piece. A few of the pieces from Burgoyne’s personal collection—“Barns XXVII,” “Homage to Piet,” and “After Caravaggio”—are not for sale, but are included in the exhibit to add to the rich history of how his art has evolved.

To learn more about Burgoyne and his work, check out his website at BurgoyneFineArt.com.

The Journey exhibit will be on display until April 10 at the Amelia Douglas Gallery, located on the fourth floor of the Douglas College New Westminster campus.