Sherway Gardens' Gallery in the Garden: In Between the Lines October 23, 2011

Demonstrating a sophisticated and visually satisfying use of the elements of colour, value, line, texture, shape, space and form, Sherway Gardens’ (Hwy 427 & the QEW) current Gallery in the Garden exhibit entitled In Between the Lines features pieces by artists Deon Best, Janice Jones and Rena Sava that produce a clear, precise image that combines both realism and creative imagination. The exhibit is on display until Saturday, November 26 in the corridor at door 3. For more information call 416-621-1070 or visit www.sherwaygardens.ca.

Artists Deon Best, Janice Jones and Rena Sava use very different approaches to creating their artworks, whether it is batik, watercolour painting, reduction printing, monoprinting, etching or collage, these challenging techniques are all used with the understanding that comes from much practice and strict attention to their execution.

Toronto artist Deon Best has loved drawing since he was a young boy. His portfolio covers a range of media including acrylic paints, mixed media, and digital design and his current focus, batik, employing a style known as ‘Modern Batik Design’. Although the precise origins of batik are not known, samples of dye resistance patterns on textiles can be traced back thousands of years ago to Egypt and the Middle East, Turkey, India, China, Japan and West Africa. Batik has evolved into an art form embraced by artists around the world. More of Deon’s work can be seen at his website at www.dbestdesign.ca

“The freedom and immediacy of working with wax and dyes on fabric is similar to that of painting,” states Deon. “The effects that can be achieved through resist dyeing often results in unpredictable and occasionally amazing texture and tones. Batik designs can be as complicated or simple as the artist desires, realistic and pictorial or purely expressive and abstracted.”

Janice Jones, another Toronto artist, has been interested in art all her life, but only started practicing it regularly after she retired from teaching high school. Janice started with botanicals, moved on to watercolours, added drawing from the figure, and two years ago, began printmaking after taking courses with Victoria Cowan at Neilson Park Creative Centre. Since then, most of her art has focused on printmaking, working with the Etobicoke Art Group’s Advanced Printmaking Studio at Neilson Park. Janice is a member of Neilson Park Creative Centre and The Etobicoke Art Group and recently won the top award for her entry in the Etobicoke Art Group’s 47th Annual Juried Exhibition.

“Although I continue to draw and paint, printmaking is the medium which I find most exciting,” says Janice. “After all the planning and preparation which goes into making a print, there is nothing to compare to that magic moment when the plate is run through the press, and then the paper is pulled back to reveal the finished product. “

Oakville artist, Rena Sava was born in Boston, Massachusetts, graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, and studied in Rome, Italy as part of a European Honours Program. Rena creates reduction prints, which is a multicolor print that is then "reduced" by carving away areas on the same plate after each colour is printed. Working from light to dark, the part removed remains coloured and the reduced portion takes on the next colour. Most prints have 6 to 8 colour reductions. Rena’s work has been exhibited extensively across southern Ontario, in juried exhibitions at the Aird Gallery, Art Gallery of Mississauga, Oakville Town Hall Art Gallery, and Etobicoke Civic Centre Art Gallery and in solo as well as many group shows.

“My painting and printmaking is a visual expression of nature: line, light, colour and form, as I see them in my subjects. I employ energetic, expressive mark-making in various media (sometimes layering techniques and materials) as well as stylization, abstraction and distortion, in order to reinvent the landscape and human form,” Rena says. “The intensity of the physical and psychological involvement in the process of painting is most important to me. My concern is to find a personal sense of harmony between subject and execution that engages the imagination of the viewer.”

Official Website: http://www.sherwaygardens.ca