The Gallery at Queen’s Park presents:
“Looking at Local Nature”
by Eric Hotz
Exhibition Dates: February 2-27, 2022
Gallery Hours: Wed – Sun, 10 am – 2 pm
Free Admission
Exhibition Statement
My artwork is an exploration of local nature, its fauna, geographical features such as its lakes, volleys, and mountains, and the clouds, and skies that hang over them. My artwork focuses on the natural history that is within a 2-hour drive from my home in Maple Ridge, BC, which con include Richmond, Stanley Park all the way up to Manning Park, and everything in between. My goal is to explore my region through my artwork to allow people to feel and see the beauty that is within easy reach of everyone who lives in and around the Greater Vancouver Area.
When I was four-years old, my family moved to North Burnaby, just up the street from the Burnaby Lake Regional Park, a 770-acre urban park. This forested park, and the surrounding areas, become my childhood playground from down to dusk: places to explore, forts to build, and tree houses to construct. It was the perfect environment to nurture both my love of biology and to inspire my art
Deer Lake is a special place in my heart because I lived near by. I have a lot of history to this area of Burnaby, including Burnaby Lake. It was here, when I was three years old, that my father tested his homemade rowboat, in 1963. There are home movies of my family taking turns rowing out, about, and bock. We have this moment in our home movies, but I can remember that day like it was yesterday. This is one of the reasons I rendered several paintings of Deer Lake Trail. I frequently visit Deer Lake when I am in Burnaby, along with the Burnaby Art Gallery.
My goal with my art is to introduce people to the nature that is literally in their backyards. There is so much beauty within our immediate area and yet, most people do not know this. Take a 2-hour drive and you can be in an alpine paradise above the clouds view a landscape of mountains that seem to go on forever or you can be on an ocean front beach watching the tide go out and clouds rolling in. Our area is so unique that many people from all over the world come to see the Greater Vancouver Area.
I believe in biophilia – an innate tendency to seek connections with nature. I will often go out to explore the many outlying regional parks for their lakes, ponds, streams, forests, meadows, and mountains. There are many beautiful locations close to where I live waiting to be discovered that I can turn into paintings. There are several lifetimes worth of paintings waiting to be discovered and rendered.
Artist Biography
- I was born in Burnaby and lived next to a large forest and also lived next to Burnaby Lake Park. I across from nature. The first job I had after I graduated from High School was working as a surveyor for a logging company. When I graduated from the Fine Arts Program at Langara I worked four years as an archaeologist in BC. My life seems to revolve around being in or next to nature.
- I now live in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, and have worked doing art for over 35 years full time. I studied art in art school full-time for 5 years, specializing in painting, illustration, and design. After graduating, I began a professional art career working in archaeology as a field and lab artist, as well as working for a Vancouver based magazine as their illustrator, and I was employed for 16 years with a Vancouver based book & game publisher as their in-house artist and later art director.
- I worked from 2014 to 2019 as a port-time TA (teaching art and model building) and as a designer to students in a classroom setting with student’s grades 4 to 7.
- In 2018-2020, I was employed as o painter/ artist for Paint Nite Fraser Valley while continuing to work as an illustrator and TA.
- In February 2020 had my first solo art show in Mission BC in the MAC Gallery where I presented 31 new paintings.
- From February 2021 to present, I work for the Langley Arts Council (LAC) as a pointing instructor teaching watercolours and acrylic painting.
- In April – May 2021, I had a solo art show at the Pitt Meadows Art Gallery (PMAG).
- In August 2021, I was selected to be one of nine international artists to have their art displayed in the art – Publication/Magazine, LandEscape Now! 15th Edition, based in London, England.
Learn more about Eric on his website, click here
