A new exhibit titled Smokey Summers at the Station House Gallery explores B.C.’s wildfires.
Pieces in the show document "our smoky summers, the beauty, tranquility and stillness that the blanket of smoke lends the landscape alongside paintings of more active burning and subsequent devastation to the landscape," said Nicola Tibbetts in her artist statement for the show.
Tibbetts told the Tribune she was impressed by the resilience of people impacted by wildfires to carry on.
“At the minimum it gave us poor air quality in Vancouver but in a place like Lytton a whole town was burned. You continue to live your lives because you have to."
Tibbetts has lived in East Vancouver for 15 years.
When smoke hit the Lower Mainland in 2020, she and her family decided to escape and do a canoe trip in Wells Gray Provincial Park.
They paddled to the end of a remote lake where there was no one else around.
On the second morning they awoke to a mist that settled in and never left.
Canoeing out the next day, they came upon some other campers with a satellite phone and learned that mist was actually smoke.
“It was beautiful, but terrifying and sad,” Tibbetts recalled.
Inspired by her own collection of photographs she snapped during the canoe trip and some more she gathered from around the province, she embarked upon creating a series of paintings for a series.
It was also during the COVID-19 pandemic so she managed to get lots of paintings completed.
As COVID was winding down, she made cold calls to four different galleries in rural B.C. and heard back from the Station House Gallery in Williams Lake and the Vernon Public Art Gallery.
“Taking my shows to other communities allows me to see more of the province, plus I thought the show might resonate more in rural B.C.”
When asked about her process as an artist, Tibbetts said she works in series.
“I choose a specific subject, do research and work on it for a couple of years.”
She enjoys painting ‘thinly’ with oils to produce a water colour effect.
Her art has changed since having three children, she admitted.
“My paintings used to be really, really busy, but now I go for calm and stillness and they have a more relaxed feel to them.”
As of yet, she has not chosen another topic and is hoping to gather some more reference material related to wildfires to add to Smoky Summers.
Tibbett studied art at Concordia University in Montreal, Que. and Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University in Halifax, N.S. She teachers art and has taught at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and Capilano University.
Aside from painting she does textile art, which she said quite often also hints at landscapes.
Smoky Summers continues at the Station House Gallery until Saturday, April 26.
