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Lee Beames
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RED EARTH #6
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LB092
acrylic, canvas, sand, paste
36" x 36"
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$ 1980 CDN
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Lee Beames
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“I am a child of the prairie landscape which I call ‘growing up prairie’. The light and colour of the prairie landscape touches my heart and memories and it remains a source of inspiration, it is vast in all its beauty. ‘Growing up Prairie’ is not so
much about colour but about an experience of light, seen through the hot shimmering heat of a summer haze or the crunchy ice crystals hanging in the air of a very cold, stark winter morning."
“Although art has always been, in one form or
another, an integral part of my life, I am a late bloomer. It is only now, in my seventies, that I have found my true voice. Several years ago I came to a crossroads in my work, a need to re-evaluate what I wanted to say and how best to do that. I sought
out Bill Portious, a respected painter and teacher, to have some dialogue. He has helped me immeasurably to challenge myself and to focus on a body of work."
“The paintings fall into four categories which I have titled ‘Growing up Prairie’, ‘The
Gypsy Woman’, ‘Another Time, Another Place’, and ‘Where the Heart Lives’. I am not trying to capture an exact moment in time, but rather the feeling and emotions of the memory. The finished paintings change constantly with the shifting light at different
times of the day. Abstraction allows me to focus on the colour of paint without the distraction of narrative. In these paintings, it’s not so much about the colour as it is the light."
“The richness and luminosity of the colour comes from the
layering of colour upon colour, using palette knife and sponge. I am usually working on several canvasses at any given time. The paintings represent an inner landscape. Some place or time I have experienced, a combination of memory and time or place, but
more importantly, they are about light and space. I’m inspired by the work of Georgia O’Keefe and Helen Frankenthaler. As a child, I spent much time alone, and by drawing, I was able to live in my imagination. Life is not just from within, it extends all
around you, whether you want it or not. And so, my painting has become my life. My work is about communicating with colour and texture; my painting is part of my ongoing commitment to the creative process. I enjoy the freedom of working directly on the
boundless expanses of space - charged with the energy of spirit. The meaning of all our experience becomes a part of our consciousness and then our creativity. The challenge for my imagination and the creativity is in choosing what’s significant for my
work."
“Whenever one does a new painting, you are in a particular landscape in your life - a mental and spiritual landscape. If you paint with intensity, then that emotional, spiritual landscape is fixed in the painting. That’s often the best it
can be. If you’ve done it well then you go forward to another plane, another painting, and you’ll be in a different creative, mental, and spiritual era or place. You can’t go back and redo those kinds of things."
“The beauty of where I live
means sometimes the fog obscures the view and envelops me with a mysterious private quality that allows me to feel the special, and always beautiful, serenity of my landscape. In the morning quiet of writing in my dream journal, I sit with my coffee,
gaze outward and go into a receptive place, within myself. This is when the ideas, thoughts and feelings rise to the surface and I can open to the creative flow. This is when the sense of discovery happens, and I trust the intuitive of the unconscious
and experience a sense of freedom."
“Dawn is the most magical time of day. The dew hangs like seed pearls upon the grass stems; the dawn comes on stealthily, painting the clouds subtle shades of pink and mauve. The mist undulates over my pond,
the geese dark and crisp against the ghostly light. A pair of kingfishers fly in a flag formation diving for their breakfast, their racketing call sounding echoes as they race across the bay. The geese take off in a straight line, arching high across the
blue of water and sky, soaring out of sight leaving just a whisper of wings on the onshore breeze. A sunrise chorus of birds, the scarlet finches flitting like flames of fire; the water emerald green, the leaves gold where the sun’s rays whisper a touch
of light and the sky is a heron blue."
“This is where the gypsy woman lives, the gypsy woman within me. The dashing, exotic feel of the gypsy spirit. The place where I try to create a sort of beauty, to express those things that have meaning for
me but that I have trouble translating into words the memoirs and knowing of my life."
“I was at the Alberta College Of Art when Illingworth Kerr was there. When Marion Nicol and Rolf Ungstad were teaching design I was influenced by their strong
views of the versatile landscape as a challenge, and the artist had to draw on his or her imagination and creativity to choose the significance for one’s own work."
“During the time of my husband’s illness and throughout the grief following his
death, the part of me that knows how to work in art was silent. Now I feel a great need to be set free, to be peaceful in the colours of my landscape, my garden, and my home. I know that something is happening when “nothing” is happening. All of my
experience of life becomes part of the consciousness, and then the creativity. My motivation lays in what stirs my imagination and challenges my creative instinct.”
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Lee Beames
Exhibitions
2003 Simply Trees, Canada House Gallery, Banff, AB
2001 Island Girls, Canada House Gallery, Banff, AB
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All images copyrighted by the artists.
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