Victoria Loschuk: “Verdant Rapture”
The Artists Gallery, 5458 Wilshire Blvd. L.A. 90036
April 22 – May 15th, Wed. – Sun., 1 – 7 p.m.
Opening Reception: Sat. April 25th, 5 – 8 p.m.
Artist Walk Through: Sunday, May 3rd, 3 p.m.
Victoria’s paintings and drawings explore the verdant vitality of the Southern California natural environment. Like historical landscape painters she is drawn to the dialogue between art and nature. Unlike traditional horizontal landscapes, other formats are used: for instance, vertical shapes that invite the viewer to look up or beyond, and circular shapes that reference the shape of earth itself. She has found her “views of nature” at times in the most unlikely places – freeway on and off ramps, and along the edges of canyon roads. The cropped compositions describe a more poetic interpretation of the subject and space – sometimes ethereal and sometimes more dramatic. In painting she plays with
clarity and obscurity, transience and impermanence, the product of gestural brushwork. In the drawings she explores perceptions of space and image making through the density of the non-erasable tool, a process that evolves through sensitivity to pressure. Her work provides a contemplative space, a presence and a solitude that one craves in the rush of city life; it suspends that delicate and green existence between sky and earth.
Victoria grew up in Western Canada, a formative experience that fostered her connection to the natural environment. She earned an M.F.A. from York University in Toronto and has exhibited in venues in the U.S. and Canada, most recently at Realart Gallery in Agoura Hills and the Sturt Haaga Gallery at Descanso Gardens. She has been awarded Artist Residencies at the Banff Center and the Bemis Artist Colony, Omaha, Nebraska. She has lived most of her life In Los Angeles where she has maintained her art practice, created artist studio spaces and has taught Art/Design in the Los Angeles Community College
system.
