Birds! Birds! Birds!

Featuring works by Tina Komendat and Victoria Marie

September 3-26, 2021

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This month we celebrate two self-taught artists that love birds so much they have dedicate most of theircreativity to them! These artists are Tina Komendat and Victoria Marie. 

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Reverend Dr. Victoria Marie (watercolour) 

This will be the first time Victoria Marie has shown her work in a gallery. Victoria is a "late bloomer" havingstarted her artistic journey in November 2020 at age 75. 

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“My studio is the approximately four feet between my bed and the computer. I try to hone my skill by paintingdaily sometimes with the help of YouTube “how to” videos. The work I love to do, and which usually turns outbest, is when I work on my self-assigned project of painting endangered species.

For the past 9 years, Victoria has served the Our Lady of Guadalupe Tonantzin Community in Vancouver astheir priest and pastor.

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Tina Komendat (mixed media) 

"I began to create art, because I knew I wanted a visual reminder to be happy. I’ve come to the simpleconclusion that I’m here to expand through love and fear. 

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By doing what I love, I hope to inspire others to find the joy in their life. By facing my fears, I hope to expandand make my dreams come true! 

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As a child, I often doodled images of things that made me happy when I felt sad or angry to take my mind offof my troubles. I drew horses, birds, flowers and hearts and stars and swirls. A Teacher in school said that Imust be cheating by copying the images. Another one was critical and bored and not encouraging. Eventhough, all I wanted to do was create, my Mom told me, I wasn’t good enough and that I’d be a starving artist.I stopped all creativity and got on with life the best I could. When I was raising my two beautiful daughtersalone, I was depressed and focusing on “not enough”, I had no art on my walls, I was just trying to get through.I decided I could paint, I wanted happy walls! I created a painting that showed me that I’m not alone and thatin fact, “it takes a village.. “It brought me out of my depression and began to show myself that being creative is more important than being good. My passion helps me to process the challenges of my life and feelexhilarated too! 

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Throughout the exhibition we are showing bird related artworks from other self-taught artists as well.