Artists drive at issues using their language of symbolism and inference.
Rene Jaspers drove all the way from Prince George to Prince Rupert to fuel her conversations with the canvas. Now those conversations get the clickety-clack of eyes, ears and voices at a leading local cultural institution.
Jaspers - a Smithers resident - was moved by the Highway of Tears, so she moved all the way along that infamous route, and came back with a new manner of speaking about it. She calls it the Highway Of Hope. Her brush has given new colour to the tragedy of the many missing and murdered women of that paved artery across the north.
"The art project Hope In The North is fueled by Rene's passion to help others," said Ranjit Gill, executive director of the Central B.C. Railway and Forestry Museum where the paintings will be unveiled today.
"She loves the northern parts of British Columbia and seeks to show everyone the beauty here," said Gill. "Starting at Prince George and ending in Prince Rupert, Rene travelled and stopped every 25 kilometres, stopped, got out of her vehicle - but limited herself to no more than five steps from the car - and snapped some pictures. With this limited vision, she found a beautiful world that exists along our Highway 16 corridor.
"This project is meant to encourage tourists and locals to go out and experience the north. Funds from the sale of the paintings will go toward helping others to receive their full driver's license and safer transportation."
The charitable designation strikes at the practicalities of northern life, the vast distances and vast vulnerabilities faced by people who haven't the money to obtain personal movement. That gap is often what puts women out on the highways of the region with their thumbs out, trying to flag down rides with strangers. The victims are not to blame for the violence done to them by the dangerous drivers who predate on the roads, but if the hitchhiking hurdle can be subtracted, safety would be improved.
"This is a really exciting project because of all the connections it has with the community. It's trying to shed different light on the Highway of Tears to turn it into the Highway of Hope by offering a real solution, using art as the spark," Gill said. "We have 40 of the paintings from the series she did; they are all spectacular. It's the most exciting art exhibit we've ever done."
Jaspers was raised inside an art gallery in Ontario, and the profession seeped into her psyche. She has been a front page Canadian painter with major solo exhibitions in her home province plus more in her adopted home of B.C.
She is also a highly-sought teacher of art.
This set of paintings from her unique trip have been put into a package Jaspers has for sale as a $36,000 unit.
Other paintings from the project are available as single pieces for $1,000 each, and there are also prints available for $100 each.
Each sale adds more funding to transportation safety for the region's most vulnerable residents when they need to travel.
This exhibition brings the paintings to public view for the first time in Prince George. It will be on display at the Centra B.C. Railway and Forestry Museum throughout May and June.
It opens on Saturday with a special guest appearance by Jaspers from 1-3 p.m.
