A lot has changed for Anne Bogle since her last solo exhibition of paintings in Prince George. Both she and the city have undergone significant shifts since she moved away more than 10 years ago, and yet since her return this spring they are blending together again like yellow and blue making green.
Bogle is the painter in the Groop Gallery spotlight on Nov. 14 when her most recent collection of works is unveiled. Groop proprietor Melanie Desjardines called it "a grand return of a Prince George favourite." Desjardines made quick work of getting Bogle signed up for a solo exhibition at the downtown gallery when the returning artist introduced herself. Bogle's new paintings gave Desjardines all the incentive she needed to arrange an exhibition, despite them being nothing like the fare she typically created before. Those were watercolours on paper, they were often realist, often still-life, usually with small brushes for detailed strokes. Since Bogle moved to Nanaimo she has converted to acrylics on canvas or wood, her go-to brush is two inches wide, much of the imagery is impressionist or downright abstract, and she is loving it.
"It was time for a change," she said firmly, meaning more than just the move from northern interior to island-coastal. "You sometimes get tired of painting everything just as it is. You want to let go. Well, I let go."
Some of the biggest reasons for shifting genres was the physicality of the move itself. Watercolour painting requires a lot of glass, framing materials, paper, and in many situations having a skilled framer trusted by the artist. She didn't want to heave and haul it all through the process of moving, she didn't know any Nanaimo framers, so she shed the watercolour habit almost cold turkey.
Acrylics gave her a lighter load and a new set of skills to learn.
Another change was painting "en plein air" or out in the open world. To shoot a scene with a camera and try to paint it later from the photograph distorts the actual light spectrum and renders the painting even more of a fiction than working it onto the canvas from the naked eye.
Another celebrated local painter (Prince George and Wells), Marie Nagel, is now a resident of Vancouver Island. Bogle would travel down to Victoria to stay with her and the two would venture out (or sometimes join a group called the Al Frescoes) to render their works on location.
"We went out in rain, wind, cold, bugs. It's a different way to approach painting. You paint with your gloves on. You have to think about how you're dressed and what you have to eat. You think at first that you have to walk around and find the perfect place, but you never find it. You discover you just go out in the elements and sit down. I remember down by the water at Beacon Hill Park one day, the wind was just howling so once we got to the parking lot I went looking for the first protected spot I could find, and there in front of me were some rocks in the water and a bit farther off was Trial Island. I had a limited pallet, which was really helpful, and I am really happy with the painting. I think that one will be in the show."
Most or perhaps all of the paintings in the Groop Gallery exhibition will be for sale, but Bogle said that was no longer a motivation for her brush strokes.
"You do your best work when you put away the thought 'will it sell?' and just think 'here it is, so be it.' It feels so wonderful to paint for the love of it, instead of the worry of making money," she said.
Bogle's paintings will be unveiled at an evening reception on Nov. 14 at Groop Gallery.
