By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle
If you haven’t been to The Art Gallery Osoyoos in some time, now is the time to make your foray back into the wonderful world of local art. Currently showing is a visual smorgasbord of paintings and pottery by the husband wife duo of Oliverites Darrell Wyant and Ruth Lofstrom.
Lofstrom, originally from Fernie, has been pursuing pottery on and off for the last 30 years. She is a member of the Osoyoos Potters and although she has her own studio and kiln, enjoys the camaraderie, creative and otherwise, of the local potters group.
She finds the art of pottery to be meditative and still marvels at “starting with a lump of clay and ending up with something beautiful,” despite her many years coaxing clay into objets d’art. “Opening the kiln is one of the most exciting things,” she says.
She muses that the lock downs of the COVID-19 era made her a better potter, perhaps not an uncommon sentiment amongst many artists.
Lofstrom highlights that her artistic skill is concentrated on the delicate shaping and moulding of the clay and doesn’t extend into painting. While some of her works have some painting embellishments, she laughs that “I leave that to Darrell”.
Wyant, originally a Prince George native spent the 1980’s pursuing his interest in drawing, painting, sculpture, art history, philosophy, and anthropology at Douglas College along with stints at Kwantlen and Fraser Valley colleges.
Artwork by Ruth Lofstrom and Darrell Wyant at TAGO.
To support himself he also worked for a range of employers – always well planned out in a way that he could “unite his love of creative expression with the pragmatic needs of subsistence.”
The jobs all had purpose beyond subsistence, through his employment he learned transferable skills of airbrushing, fiberglassing, mold making, and casting at Vancouver novelty manufacturers and decorative concrete statuary suppliers. And of course he picked up an array of hand tools experience at various blue collar jobs.
Wyant paints predominantly in acrylic, having largely shifted away from oil paints due to his wife’s allergy to the paint.
He began his artistic endeavors in his youth and had his first show in Maple Ridge in 1986 and it’s clearly a passion that is simply part of his DNA. This current show is the first since the couple left the lower mainland, nearly a decade ago
Some of his early influence was that of Dutch master Vincent van Gogh. “I really appreciated his honesty,” Wyant said. Indeed, stepping into the art gallery one’s eyes are immediately drawn to a striking painting of van Goh who seemingly locks eyes with you as you enter the room.
His paintings cover a lot of ground with much of his inspiration drawn from a journal packed full of notes and sketches that he began in the 1970s. The contrasts in subject matter make the show seem bigger than it really is, filling the gallery walls with still life to social commentary.
Eclectic would be one simplistic description of the deep and thought providing works that are at the same a visual delight to drink in.
The show is only on until this weekend, and if you haven’t seen it, it’s absolutely worth a visit.
TAGO is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and is located at 8713 Main St., Osoyoos.
