Opening Reception September 26, 2024, 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Exhibition continues until October 16
Artists Statement
"This Is When We Were" is a collection of 12 paintings by Canadian artist Erica Beyea. The imagery is sourced from personal photographs from the last decade of Beyea's life. In that time, she's moved from Toronto, to Spain, and to New Brunswick.
This decade of constant change has led her to be more introspective, finding home wherever she goes. She explores quiet moments of connection between people, animals, and oneself. Her use of colour brings these memories to life, charging them with emotion.
She focuses on the experiences that are more universal, relatable no matter where you are, or who you are. Reading, touching a loved one, having breakfast made for you-these are the small moments that make up our lives, and that make the intimacy feel immense."
About the Artist
Erica Beyea (b.1983) is an artist from New Brunswick, Canada. She studied Fine Arts at the Ontario College of Art & Design, and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (with honours) from NSCAD University in 2006.
She lived half of her life in Toronto, where she worked as an art teacher and founded the non-profit organization Girls’ Art League. After years of engagement in Toronto’s visual arts community, she moved to Granada, Spain in 2017. In Spain, she exhibited in Granada, Cadiz, Malaga and in Madrid.
She returned to live in New Brunswick in 2022, and currently resides in Moncton.
Her work is inspired by her daily life, what she observes and feels. Since moving back to the Maritimes, landscape has taken a larger presence in her paintings. After spending more than half of her life away, she sees the natural beauty of this region with fresh eyes. You will often find a figure, human or animal, within the composition. It serves as a proxy for you to enter the painting yourself.
“Using personal photographs as a jumping off point, each painting goes its own way from there. Oscillating between representation and abstraction, I try to saturate each painting with the emotion and internal experience of the moment the photo was taken.
I am completely obsessed with colour, and this is my primary tool for adding emotion to the particular moment I am representing. I’m always experimenting with different palettes and how far I can take them.
I’m exploring our perception of place and how it morphs over time. Our memories are famously inaccurate. Our emotions and thoughts distort, exaggerate and strip away parts of any given experience or place we have visited or lived in. Trying to reproduce the intangible via the very fixed medium of oil paint, I take pleasure in the impossibility of the endeavour. A celebration of our human nature, our faulty observation skills, and the magic that this brings to our personal experiences and memories”