Sherway Gardens' Gallery in the Garden: The Way Of The Brush September 3, 2008

Experience the art of Chinese Brush Painting with the current Sherway Gardens’ Gallery in the Garden exhibit The Way of the Brush featuring artists Baoxing Zhang, Bernadette Oppenheim Duzyk, Adele Hartwell, Shirley Secor, and Lorene Holmes on display until September 27, 2008. For more information call 416-621-1070 or visit www.sherwaygardens.ca.

Chinese Brush Painting is a beautiful form of painting based on disciplined learning and tradition. The strokes employed in brush painting have developed since the fifth century in China and the 9th century in Japan. It was the Chinese who articulated, defined and codified the technique of brush painting strokes to which the Japanese later made significant contributions of their own.

Chinese Brush Painting is contemplative and complex, with a deceptive simplicity. The nature and various unique properties of the brushes enhance the motion of the stroke. Each brush stroke is a defining move that produces a mark that is neither improved upon nor corrected. No sketch is prepared and no model is used; the artist paints with rapid, mentally constructed strokes to put their image on the paper. From the first to the last stroke, the artist must 'get it right'.

To achieve freedom, spontaneity and boldness, the emphasis in brush painting is on the idea. Visualization of an idea is required before touching brush to paper. To visualize requires much thought and devoted practice. Visualization brings to bear mind and soul, artistic motivation and the bold expression of inner beauty that leads to artwork that is unique to the artist alone.

All of the works in this exhibition are done in traditional Chinese Brush Painting on rice paper with Chinese ink and watercolour. Instructor Baoxing Zhang brought Bernadette Oppenheim Duzyk, Adele Hartwell, Shirley Secor, and Lorene Holmes together to work at his Mississauga studio.

Baoxing Zhang started to practice Chinese painting and calligraphy in his childhood. Although he finished his Ph. D. in geophysics, his true passion is art. In the last 18 years since arriving in Canada, he has been teaching Chinese painting and calligraphy at the University of Toronto, Mohawk College (Hamilton) and at the Oakville Art Society, as well as at his own studio at the Eminence Learning Centre in Mississauga. He also gives workshops in regular basis to the Sumi-E society of Canada and Mississauga. His studio is in the Eminence Learning Centre in Mississauga.

Oakville artist Bernadette Oppenheim Duzyk studied Classical art in Europe and has specialized in Chinese Brush Painting for over twenty years. She studied under renowned Chinese artists Jeremy Tsai, Zhenhu Han and Yao Kui and continues to attend the studio of Boaxing Zhang. She is also past president of the Mississauga Sumi-e Society. Her works have been exhibited in juried shows at the Art Gallery of Mississauga and at the Art and Sales Gallery at The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and also at Encadrements Laurier, Outremont, Quebec. A.H Campbell Gallery, Westmount, Quebec, Gallery Plus in Oakville, Cannington House Gallery, Bronte, and the Fawcett-Langdon Gallery, Burlington.

Adele Hartwell has been painting with Baoxing Zhang from 2006 to 2008 and has exhibited her paintings at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, the Mississauga Library Square and the Royal Botanical Gardens. Adele received her seal as a Sumi-e Artist of Canada in 1991 and has exhibited and sold her paintings at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, the Etobicoke Civic Centre, the Neilson Park Creative Centre Art Gallery and the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education.

Mississauga artist Shirley Secor began her love of art as a student at Beatrice Walshe's Studio studying oil painting. She attained her Supervisor's degree in Art from the Ministry of Education. Shirley is a retired Visual Arts teacher from the Peel Board of Education. For the last four years she has studied Chinese Brush Painting at the Eminence School of Art.

Lorene Holmes studied Chinese Brush Painting under Baoxing Zhang at his Eminence Studio for three years. Lorene became interested in Oriental patterns when she was teaching pottery in Red Lake, Ont. When she moved to Mississauga, she took basic brush stroke lessons from Diana Fenty and then began to work with Baoxing Zhang after meeting at a Sumi-e of Mississauga workshop.

Official Website: http://www.sherwaygardens.ca