Wanting to set a challenge for herself, Lynn Cociani, a Prince Rupert artist, created more than 20 images now displayed in a new exhibit at the Ruth Harvey Gallery until the end of July.
The opening night of the showcase, June 10, saw more than 40 art enthusiasts celebrate the creations painted during COVID-19 with glasses of wine and hor d’oeuvres.
The display consists of a series of landscape paintings with corresponding abstracts, Cociani said.
“I use the landscape as an inspiration to riff off an abstract that uses the same colour palette. I’m trying to capture something about the feeling or the mood of the place in the landscape, but in abstract form,” she said.
“So, as a challenge to myself, I wanted to see if I could create two paintings that talk to each other.”
The artist explained that for her, landscapes are not just “pretty pictures of somewhere.”
“With landscapes, there’s a lot of emotion, significance and meaning that I attach to a place. So, hopefully, the abstracts capture something of that feeling.”
Cociani, who has been painting for more than 25 years and got her start in art school, was originally supposed to have a similar themed exhibit planned for 2020. However, the COVID lockdown postponed that but still influenced her thought processes and creativity.
“Once the lockdown happened, you couldn’t go to indoor spaces anymore. I spent a lot more time in outdoor spaces. [My work] took on a different kind meaning being in the outdoors and with everything we were going through at the time. So it kind of morphed a little bit.”
She said the past two years have allowed her to reflect on what the community was going through. She found abstracts therapeutic.
“What I found during the pandemic is that abstracts became a really good way to process what I was thinking and feeling. There’s something about doing an abstract where you have to tap into a different part of yourself than if you’re doing something representational,” she said.
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K-J Millar | Editor and Multimedia Journalist
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