I will be taking part in my first live auction coming up next week. I’m very excited as I’ve never had any work in an auction, let alone a live auction, so I’m not sure what to expect! The auction and event will be held at Maynards Fine Art & Antiques in Vancouver, in their beautiful new spacious showroom on Main Street. Maynards was the presenting sponsor for the Vancouver Art Gallery’s summer blockbuster show that has just closed, The Modern Woman.
Maynards auction is titled The Contemporary Woman and will be held on September 22nd, at 5:30pm (live auction starts at 6:15pm).
I will be auctioning three paintings – one portrait and two smaller paintings that will be auctioned as a pair – from my La Melodie de la Nostalgie series. These paintings were originally painted in 2005 for an exhibition titled Location/Locality when I was living in London, UK. The inspiration for the work, however, was my time in Paris, France in 2001. I was already interested in themes of nostalgia, and this series was unique in that it was my interpretation of someone else’s memories, or rather, how I hoped someone else remembered me during those times in Paris. The titles for each work place the event in a time and place and with a song lyric-like title – hence the title for the series, La Melodie de la Nostalgie, which translates into “The Melody of Nostalgia”.
A few of the paintings from this series sold while from the original exhibition, and the ones that are for auction are the ones that traveled back with me to Vancouver. It is hard to see in the photographs, but the paintings are done in both oil and acrylic. The portrait aspect is painted in thin layers of oil, so there is a transparent effect to it. These were meant to be “real” like photographs, whereas the backgrounds, which are the locate the events, were painted in acrylic interference paint. Acrylic interference paint are colourless, transparent paints made from titanium coated mica flakes and from afar they are lost in the background. On closer inspection, however, the colours have a metallic look and shift colour, depending on the viewing angel. The effect is very difficult to photograph, but appears similar to the colours displayed in an oil slick floating on water.
The backgrounds are fantasy like and surreal, floating in and out of view.
This painting, which will be part of the auction, is a self-portrait on the platform of the Saint-Germain-des-Pres Metro station in Paris – the tunnel and train tracks can be made out on the right of the painting with the “METRO” sign at the upper right.
These two paintings, which are being auctioned as a diptych, are a pair and meant to be hung one above the other. These were some of my first examples of pattern work finding their way into my art.
For more information on the auction, please visit the Maynards event listing. All the works will also be open for viewing this Saturday, September 18, at the Maynards showroom.