Feeling confined? You want a Wolcoski on your wall …
Article in The Vancouver Sun, Jan 21, 2011, Lucy Hyslop Section F 1 + 3
“It is good that I seek in my work, as no good can easily be found anywhere,” Louise Bourgeois.
When North Burnaby-based Corrinne Wolcoski sets to work in her studio, she aligns herself with this sentiment of the late French-American sculptor and artist.
“I like the way she practised art for life,” explains the oil painter, who is showing at Art Works in Vancouver. For example, while some people become so attached to their paintings they find it hard to part from them, Wolcoski is the opposite.
“I paint because I love making the painting, and when it’s done, I feel really happy that I have completed something. I don’t cling on, because I am excited about starting another one,” says the artist, who usually works on four or five paintings at once.
Referring to her 1,200-square-foot duplex as her “limited living and breathing room” — especially when compared to the 40 acres she grew up on in the Okanagan — art is her escape route.
“Growing up, I couldn’t see the end of the land before it went into the sky – here you have telephone wires, houses and billboards,” says the graduate of the Emily Carr University of Art + Design. “There’s so much interference, you can’t see openness, so I go into my art whenever I feel confined. It’s where I get my happiness and balance.”
Wolcoski, who has travelled the entire West Coast (from the Baja in Mexico to Alaska), is clearly drawn to the ocean. The Sea to Sky Highway and Tofino are particular favourites. She deliberately puts little detail in the pictures in order to elicit “an emotional feel with the sky and ocean; if you put too much detail then it can draw away from the effect.”
Shown in four other places — Victoria, Banff, Whistler (Chateau Whistler) and Jasper – Wolcoski recently donated four panels to Vancouver General Hospital’s spine centre. For a while, due to back problems, she could not paint until surgery was performed in 2008.
“I got my quality of life back — it was like night and day, so I really have an appreciation for my health and life,” she says. Now she combines her painting with office management at a dentist’s. “I’m not financially forced to paint for an income, which is great because I can be really selfish about what I do,” she adds.
Corrinne Wolcoski’s Fire and Water exhibition with Paul C. Nickless is at Art Works Gallery (225 Smithe Street, 604-688 3301; artworksbc.com) until Feb. 18.
