Powell River-based painter Lynn Price looks to time and still life to inform her art. She graduated from Emily Carr University, receiving the Governor General’s Silver Academic Medal. Her work has been featured in exhibitions in Canada and Finland. Price is currently completing a masters of fine art at Concordia University in Montreal and recently received the Tanabe Prize, which is awarded annually to a BC artist.
Can you describe your art?
I make large installations of small individual paintings on paper. The work changes over time and with each presentation. I work mostly in oil paint, but sometimes I use watercolour and gouache.
What is your process and inspiration?
At the heart of my practice is an interest in the philosophy of time and the genre of still life. My process involves creating limiting systems within which I can be free to generate a large number of versions of the same image or related images. My projects tend to be quite long term. For example, I have one, Time, give me the secret, which I have been working on for the past five years.
What is the Tanabe Prize?
It is awarded to a BC artist whose primary medium is painting and who is considered an emerging artist. The recipient is selected by curators of contemporary art who are associated with art museums and galleries. There is no application for the prize, so it came as a surprise. Takao Tanabe is a respected senior artist who now lives on Vancouver Island. He generously established and funded this award. It is such an honour to receive it.
What are you up to and excited about in 2018?
I will be graduating with a master of fine arts in drawing and painting from Concordia University in early June. The program is three years in length and I was in Montreal for the first two. Last November and December I was in Montreal for a solo exhibition for my thesis presentation. Because I have been away from home so much over the past three years, I am looking forward to spending time here in Powell River and excited about getting back to the studio.
Did you grow up in Powell River?
No, I grew up in Vancouver. My husband Ken Palfrey and I have called Powell River home for more than a decade now.
For more information, go to thewonderingground.wordpress.com.
