FIRST AND FOREMOST
ARTIST CORI CREED IN HER WEST VANCOUVER STUDIO
THE NARRATIVE OF NATURE ARTIST CORI CREED CAPTURES THE EVOCATIVE SPIRIT OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST LANDSCAPE STORY | LAURA GOLDSTEIN
by weather’s unpredictability and
Columbia coastline and lush rainforests, Vancouver-based artist Cori Creed
ever- changing light.
immerses herself in the spontaneity and unpredictability of nature.
“I’m really drawn to the textured
“I love to be outdoors hiking and climbing, then try to recapture on canvas that emo-
patterning of trees and bark and the
tional place I’m experiencing by drawing the viewer into that illusion of space to tell a story,”
graphic elements of the process,”
she says from her light-filled home studio on the North Shore.
says Creed. “If it’s an arbutus then it’s
These are not the dark, ominous forests of fairy tales. Creed’s exploration of woods,
the figurative and lyrical; birch trees
marshy ponds and tangled undergrowth in her recent exhibition, Narrative, at the Bau-Xi
have so much texture and layering
Gallery, are inviting, joyous and vibrantly hued.
in their bark. I’ve always been really
Creed’s sweeping reach bestows her towering paintings with a physical grandeur that
drawn to seeing all the drafting marks
befits her reverence for trees: Arbutus, douglas fir and birch are cherished favourites. Her
left behind in Impressionist paintings
subjects are never still. Branches bow and logs collide under thick three-dimensional impas-
and I love playing with intentional
to-applied layers of oil paints. Ethereal clouds swirl and sweep across the surface affected
accidents when I paint.
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SPRING 2020
LIVINGMAG.CA
SARAH JANE PHOTOGRAPHY
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i k e p a i n t e r E m i l y Ca r r ’ s v e n e r a t i o n o f t h e r u g g e d B r i t i s h
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