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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1999-02-10, Page 171 Exeter Times -Advocate Crossroads • wedrtisday,F•bruary !0, 19!! Lucan artist reflects nature through her eyes ucan area artist Elizabeth Tonner-Keats in her element her home studio. stilt By Craig Bradford TIMES -ADVOCATE STAFF I hU€1ANi BIDDULPLI �Y: art lover can tell Elizabeth Tonner-Keats feels the same about nature as she does i about her paintings - she loves both .with a passion. Tonner-Keats, 42, is a Lucan area artisi who specializes in capturing the serenity and spirituality of nature. Some of her work can be seen at the Ausable Centre's 'Watercolours' exhibit that runs till Feb. 24. Her work has been seen at group exhibits at Toronto's O'Keefe Centre, Ottawa's National Art Gallery, many northern Ontario art galleries and several exhibits in London. Tonner-Keats also shows her paint- ings at art festivals throughout the sum- mer and has had two of her paintings grace the cover of the Canadian health mag- azines Vitalogy and Common Ground. The Times -Advocate caught up to Tonner-Keats in her studio on the second floor of her large and artful home she shares with Bhakta, her German Shepherd, and Rasa, her cat. Tonner-Keats has been a profes- sional artist for 20 years and has been a full-time artist (read: she gave up her day job as a floral designer) several years ago. Born in Toronto and raised in London, Tonner-Keats came to the Lucan area seven years ago when she fell in love with a piece of property for sale along a winding. creek. Tonner-Keats said she knew she wanted t� be an artist early in her life. • "It was just a passion," she elabo= - rated. "I just knew this was some- thing I wanted to do." She was encouraged by John �Snieulders whIrduAbLiviS a; teenager. Tonner-Keats babysat Smeulders' children. But the big payoff for her wasn't the cash at the end of the night but the chance to accompany Smeulders to his studio for private drawing lessons. Tonner-Keats values the work• of Russian abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky and impressionists like Lorne Harris. She works in watercolours, as the name of the Ausable Centre's exhibit reflects. Watercolours are arguably the hardest painting medium there is since it is so hard to control the paint once it hits the canvas. "It has a nature of its own, Tonner-Keats said of her chosen medium. "You can't control it. It's exciting and unpredictable. It shows emotion more than other mediums." When asked to do something many artists hate to do — 'succinctly pigeon -hole their style — Tonner- Keats borrowed a term from fellow artist and .friend Ken Jackson of London. "Escapism," she said. "There's enough realism." It is the "magic of nature" that inspires Tonner-Keats to work at the various aspects of her craft (actually painting, coming up with ideas, administration, etc.) for more than eight hours each day. "There's a spiritual union I feel," she said. "It's all alive. Everything has a soul when I look at nature." Tonner-Keats finds much of her "You can't control it, It's exciting and unpredictable. It shows emotion more than other mediums." ELIZABETH TONNER-KEATS subject matter •in Killarney Provincial Park just south of Sudbury on the northwest head of Georgian Bay. She takes a few one-week "excursions" to the park each year where she takes photos of what she wants to capture on canvas back home. "I just fell in love with the area, it's so lovely," she said of Killarney that features lakes of different hues of blue and pink granite. Tonner-Keats also spends time at Quebec's Madeleine Islands between Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island. The series of five or six islands has large outcroppings of rock jutting out of the water joined togeth- er by sand dunes. She said a wide range of art afi- cionados appreciate and buy her paintings including young people to those in their 50s to cottagers to those who just love nature and the outdoors. While much of her work struggles to capture nature, it transcends realism becoming almost surreal. Tonner- Keats doesn't focus on the obvious, like a wolf or a white -tail deer she may have chanced across, but -delves into landscapes, .sometimes narrow- ing down to a. single captured leaf in a4piderweb. • _,onner-Keats' ,pa ting$.calm.,the viewer, something she strives for. "I think people are responding to Page 17 tide spiritual aspect of nature," slit said. "I hope that it brings them peace and that it has a healing effect." 'BUIdes following her muse, Tonner-Keats likes to read (especially New Age material) and of course loves to camp and hike. But she keeps a hectic .work sched- ule and doesn't get to indulge$ in her other pursuits as much as she'd like. In fact, there's a harp in .Tonner- Keats' bedroom she has barely had a chance to acquaint herself with. Everybody needs to take a break now and then and Tonner-Keats wants her paintings to reflect that. "People really need right now since our society is so fast -paced and mechanized," she said. "I think the artwork really needs to have the human qualities and the imperfec- tions to remind us of who we really are." Tonner-Keats most recent pieces reflect this by being framed with the raw edge of the paper left in view rather than be covered up by the frame. Future projects for Tonner-Keats will include branching out from watercolours to do more "experimen- tal" work with collages, "semi- abstract" pieces and clay sculpting.,.: , "I jtist want to do it all," she said with a grin. ourney' by Elizabeth Tonner-Keats. rigor ;