Jesse Winter, Centretown News
Gwendolyn Best’s new exhibit, Fur and Farms, opened last weekend at the Orange Art Gallery. The signature black cats and rats featured in local artist Gwendolyn Best’s paintings are exploring new territory this Halloween: pumpkins, pastures and tractors.
The farm-frolicking felines belong to Best’s new collection, Fur and Farms, exhibiting from Oct. 14 to Nov. 1 at the Orange Art Gallery located at the City Centre complex near LeBreton Flats.
Best has been painting for more than 40 years. For many of those, the Montréal-born artist avoided using the colour black and painting cats.
However, she says she developed an appreciation for both the striking abstract quality of a dark figure against a nuanced background and the alluring silhouette of the animals.
“I have always loved cats and I wanted to paint them,” Best says, “but if I told people I was painting cats they would think I’m some crazy old cat lady, so it took me some time, but I thought what the heck!”
Black cats and rats have become identifying elements of Best’s work.
Best says there is something child-like and mischievous about her black animals, like the rats peering out of a pumpkin in “Home is Where the Heart is” and “They Can’t See us if we Don’t Blink” but they are not sinister or scary; they are just “observing their audience.”
Ingrid Hollander, owner and curator of the Centretown-based gallery, says Best is on her way to becoming a famous painter.
The gallery has been exclusively selling her work for five years.
“People either get it or they don’t get it and that’s a sign of good art.” Hollander says.“
The autumn theme was inspired by a trip Best made to her nephew’s family farm in Poland, Ont. She says she happened across a decommissioned tractor and was interested in the uncovered engine and the beauty of the machine.
Tractors are not the only items in the collection that enchant Best. She enjoys how art gives her the opportunity to really appreciate the subjects of her work, which is why she likes painting old houses.
One of her paintings features the historic Orange Art Gallery building, which housed the Canadian National Rail bank 100 years ago.
“You just can’t do better than Centretown and the Glebe. It’s amazing how the houses are so beautiful, a lot has happened in them,” Best says.