Artist Robert Skot McMillan will hang a 20-piece show at Malaspina Art Society’s exhibition space at Vancouver Island University during the month of May.
The show, entitled Local Water, Out Back: Lake and Spirit, was produced in collaboration with local photographers who have documented the beauty in local backwood areas.
This exhibition is a document honouring freshwater lakes and human relationship with nature, the changing climate and the impact people have on it. One focal piece depicts a celebratory gathering in the woods; something the artist believes all can relate to as an experience one time or another.
As McMillan worked through the process of pulling the show together, it became evident that this collection would be just a starting point for him.
Although he is a local boy, McMillan spent his first five years in Scotland, and it was in the tiny village called Cross House, on a drive with his granddad when he was three years old, when he became aware that he was here on earth to be an artist.
His family immigrated to Powell River in 1973. After growing up, leaving town a few times and earning an undergraduate degree in fine arts, he is back to stay.
“Painting is my practice, my discipline, my passion and my life,” he said. “I have two ongoing themes—birth, rebirth and creation as well as the simpler process of painting landscapes. My overall body of work is an exploration that is perpetually evolving in the depiction of light and beauty. It is a process of feeling my way through things, the traditional subject matter and the more expansive process enveloping emotion and intellectual concerns and reactions.”
McMillan will be in attendance at the opening night of his show 7 to 9 pm on Thursday, May 1. His show will hang in the foyer throughout the month of May. Everyone is welcome to attend.
