Water focus of exhibit
YorkRegion.com
March 6, 2014
By Adam Martin-Robbins
The City of Vaughan is, once again, using art to raise awareness about global efforts to protect the environment.
And this time it has enlisted internationally acclaimed King City artist Ernestine Tahedl to help deliver the message.
Waterscapes, an exhibition featuring five large acrylic paintings by Ms Tahedl, is on display at Vaughan city hall’s atrium gallery until April 25.
It is the second instalment in the city’s annual art series, designed to coincide with two dates dedicated to championing international awareness of conservation efforts and environmental sustainability — Earth Hour, March 29 and Earth Day, April 22.
“I have always been very, very close to nature and landscape,” Ms Tahedl, 73, said. “Since I came to Canada, in the 1960s, I think the Canadian landscape has been one of the strongest influences in my paintings, until most recently when I moved, a little bit, away from it. In addition, I have always been very interested in creating something inspired by water … to show an appreciation for nature and the impact nature has on society. Hopefully, I can express that through my work.”
The paintings featured in Waterscapes were created during the last five years, including Allegro Appassionato, which depicts a tranquil pond with luminous, floating water lilies that evoke the work of renowned impressionist painter Claude Monet.
“I did start the water lilies after visiting Giverny, which is where Monet had his garden, which he painted,” Ms Tahedl explained. “But it wasn’t the paintings that I found interesting, it was how he laid out his pond with his water lilies, which is what started this whole thing.”
The show’s centerpiece is a large, four panel abstract painting, dubbed Goldberg Variations VII, which Vaughan’s arts co-ordinator Sharon Gaum-Kuchar described as “an explosion of music and water.”
It was inspired, in part, by the reflection of fall leaves in water, but also by the music Ms Tahedl listened to while painting it — Bach’s Goldberg Variations.
Ms Tahedl was born and educated in Austria.
She earned a master’s degree in graphic art from the Vienna Academy of Applied art.
After graduating she worked alongside her father, Heinrich Tahedl, an artist, to design and create stained glass commissions.
Ms Tahedl immigrated to Canada in 1963 and settled in King City 20 years later, where she continues to live and paint.
She has received numerous awards and accolades throughout her career, including the Allied Arts Medal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, a Canada Council arts award, the Governor General’s Canada 125th Anniversary Medal and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal.
“(The exhibition) is dealing with water as a precious commodity and knowing Ernestine’s penchant for incorporating water into her compositions, I thought this would be a really, really remarkable fit, especially since she is a regional artist, hailing from King,” Ms Gaum-Kuchar said. “She does, really, have a great reverence for water in her compositions and it’s a very spiritual connection and I think that fits in really well with the Planet Earth series.”
The Vaughan exhibition comes on the heels of a large retrospective of Ms Tahedl’s work in Europe that featured pieces dating back 60 years.
She hopes those who see it are motivated to take steps to protect the environment.
“(I hope) that they somehow feel a certain beauty that should be preserved,” Ms Tahedl said. “That they get inspired to find for themselves beauty in landscape or in water or in their own lives. And I do hope it, somehow, transposes itself into spirituality and serenity.”
Waterscapes is open to the public Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.
