Smithers Art Gallery presents Touched by Light by Cindy Materi and Mairead Sikkes. The upcoming show is made powerful by the synonymous imagery of two artists living in different locales while painting in parallel. Cindy and Mairead are adept at capturing the light of their surroundings and radiating the light back into their paintings.
The opening reception is this Thursday, Aug. 2, 7-9 p.m.; free admission and open to all members of the public. Refreshments are provided.
Exhibition Dates: July 31 – Sept. 8
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Friday 10-5, Saturday 9-5
Artist bios
Cindy Materi
Cindy Materi (nee Homenuke) grew up in Smithers and has lived in various northern communities including Stewart, Pine Point, NWT, Tumbler Ridge and Quick. She has a BEd., and currently lives with her husband Ron in Kitwanga, where she works as an educational assistant.
Cindy has always been involved in a variety of creative pursuits. Her paintings have been exhibited in Smithers, Terrace, Prince George and Yellowknife. This will be her first show in many years.
Mairead Sikkes
Born in Belfast, North Ireland, Mairead was always passionately interested in drawing and painting. Her parents encouraged her by arranging oil painting lessons with a local artist at the age of 14. This led to them showing off her work to every visitor who came to the house. At Teachers’ College, Mairead specialized in Art and taught Art at an inner city high school in Belfast for a year in 1971.
Mairead volunteered for a two-year stint at St. Joseph’s School in Smithers and ended up meeting her husband Nick there and staying on in Canada. Shortly after retiring from teaching, Mairead moved to the Okanagan in 2012 to be near family. The Okanagan provides a different type of scenery altogether with much more exposed rock, long-needled, airy pines and of course, many vineyards — quite different from the dense coniferous forests and mountains of the north. Given the warmer climate, Mairead also appreciates the wider variety of floral subjects grown for painting.
–Submitted story