Following a summer of a blistering heatwave and raging wildfires, Claudia Punter would like to turn around and point to the disappearance of our land’s beauty.
In her new exhibit at the ART GALLERY Osoyoos, ‘The Beauty of Creation,’ Punter conjures up beautiful, innocent scenes of animals and nature with over 50 paintings, and some clay sculptures.
Instead of highlighting the destruction so visible around us, Punter chooses to instead paint the specks optimism within nature.
Punter says that there are two directions: the old looks back and the new looks forward. “We have to realize what humanity has done, and we can look forward to a new approach, to the bright sky, making a better world.”
Despite the joy in her paintings, Punter admits that she is not just a little, but very worried about our planet. Living up on Anarchist Mountain with her husband, she witnessed the monumental Nk’Mip Creek wildfire first hand, waking up every morning with worry.
Seeing the smoke everywhere, and hearing about how many square kilometers have been burned was particularly hard for Punter.
Claudia Punter painting Angel and Seagull. Submitted photo.
“The plants make our oxygen but we don’t care. We still go logging, clear cutting and the fire brings so much CO2 in the air…I just don’t know where it ends,” said Punter. “It just rips my heart sometimes.”
Though it seems like fire season is slowing down now with the cooler temperatures, Punter says that people have already forgotten about the danger of it all. People continue to go on their same ways as before; nobody cuts back on destruction, she says.
While driving around the Okanagan Valley, particularly in the north, Punter says she’s struck by the bare hills with hardly a tree in sight.
“That is all from fires and clear cuts. And how can you not see that? That could be all green. But it’s not. It’s all brown, yellow, brown, dead,” she says. “There is no topsoil anymore, you can’t even begin to grow. And then how many animals are displaced? or dead?”
Aside from the degradation of our landscape, Punter speaks with pointancy about the impacts of climate change on animals. Her lifetime love of creatures of all sorts is heightened when she talks about how humans can be so callous in the way we can sometimes treat them.
“I’d like to tell people to let the animals be, let nature be, and live with it. I think the more we look at these things and are amazed, the more we begin to care that we don’t destroy everything,” says Punter.
‘The Beauty of Creation’ will be exhibited at the ART GALLERY Osoyoos from Sept. 9–Oct. 2. The opening reception for the show will take place on Friday, Sept. 10 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Punter’s show was lined up to be the first exhibit at the gallery, since the pandemic started, to revert back to the normal opening reception event that was a staple for every show.
Claudia Punter painting Castor Canadensis, The Beaver. Submitted photo.
However, with many safety restrictions back in place due to B.C.’s rise in COVID cases, the gallery had to cut out the wine and refreshments, and limit the number of people coming into the gallery during the event.
However, a live band, Rootz Bound, will still be performing outside the gallery from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. during the opening reception.
Punter mentions that she has very much missed the opportunity to have in-person exhibits. Online shows lack the interaction with visitors she normally enjoys so much, she says.
