Big little piece of art

It was rather a couply day on Saturday. First stop the market to pick up produce, bread and sundry non-food things.

Then across the road to the arts council building where there was a weekend exhibition. We weren’t sure who the artist involved was, but figured we should have a look anyway.

There were two artists – one, Johanne Galipeau, a longtime island resident who, it turns out, is getting ready to move to Victoria and therefore had some pieces on sale. Normally a painter, in 2020, during lockdown, she started to explore making 10”x10” collages. It was one of these, Found in Translation, that really caught my attention.

I picked it up and couldn’t put it down. And so I asked what he thought and he said it was one of the pieces that had also caught his eye. And so I asked again what he thought and he said yes. So we bought it. Together.

When I went to give Johanne the money, she asked if I was drawn to Asian images. Obviously, there are some pretty Asian-looking aspects to the artwork, but I told her they were incidental, that what really drew me to the work was the very Pre-Raphaelite-looking woman in the top right and how much the bottom left corner reminded me of the works of Edward Hopper. Given how much I like both, hardly surprising that I should find myself sucked in. Oh, and, guess what? Turns out it is indeed a snippet of a Hopper painting that she’d used.

Back at the house with our first jointly-purchased piece of art. Have I mentioned before that his house is like an art gallery? Well, it is – beautiful, often very large pieces. When the time comes it’s going to be interesting trying to amalgamate such different tastes in one domicile. We’ll manage somehow.

And this little piece of art marks the start of the process.