Mardell Rampton – “Water’s Edge” – November 6 – 24, 2019
The Gallery at Queen’s Park presents:
“Water’s Edge”
by Mardell
Rampton
Exhibition Dates: November 6 – 24, 2019
Opening Reception: Wednesday, November 6, 2019, 6-8pm
Artist Talk: Sunday, November 17, 2019, 3-4pm
Free Admission.
EXHIBITION STATEMENT
As you enjoy Mardell Rampton’s textile designs, let her own poetic words bring you a deeper understanding of the inspiration behind them; allow these creations evoking water to seduce and calm you while you wander through the exhibition.
Come with me here…to the water’s edge…let the blues and greens of the natural world ease away the tension…the stress…the pace of our modern world.
Allow the gentle repetitive motion of the waves lapping against the shore to bring a steadying beat to the frenetic race of time.
Let the qualities of nature wash away the jagged edges of stress and intensity. Bask in the brilliant blue of a coastal summer day, or float gently in the peaceful grays and muted tones of a drizzly damp day.
The textures…the colours…distilled from time spent on the sea with my family as a child. The wild and stunning beaches of the west coast of Vancouver Island. The powerfully haunting totems in abandoned First Nations villages all along the BC coastline…the silvery grey of the weathered cedar the only discernible colour…the mystical beauty of the carved figures eroded by the punishing effects of the wind, the salt air and the sun.
Rampton adds:
The software engineer in me chooses only a single form (the rectangle) with which to compose my work… the lines, the precision of the construction methods reflecting these analytical and structured qualities. The artist in me softens these more rigid constructs with cloth…the organic shape of each rectangle…the slow intuitive mark of the hand.
My wish for you is to connect with these essences, captured carefully in my dye pots and watercolour paints, and in the marks I make on cloth and on paper, giving your spirit a place to rest in ease…grace…serenity.
ARTIST BIO
Mardell Rampton is a Canadian artist who works intuitively with colour and texture on cloth to create her paintings. Her process involves hand dyeing, hand painting, and marking the cloth. Working from Studio Southwynde in Burnaby, BC, Rampton is an internationally exhibited artist with recent work appearing in shows in the US, Canada, France and Italy. More recently, the artist has also been exploring watercolour on cold pressed papers.
