< Back To Member Portfolios Facebook Instagram Linkedin Lori Anne www.LoriAnneMckague.com Artist Bio: When the mind’s eye is a kaleidoscope, creation springs forth from the most unlikely of places. Such vision inspires artist Lori Anne McKague’s freestyle works of art. After a 40-year career in advertising and design, I traded deadlines for discovery—yet found that […]
Author: Travis Clarke
Travis Clarke- Canadian Digital Artist
Michelle Lamothe
Michelle Lamothe is a landscape artist whose works are inspired by the scenic views of the Canadian West Coast and Prairie Provinces. Her landscapes reflect a personal experience with the outdoors, capturing the richness of the Canadian mountains, forests and lakes.
Michelle’s interest in art began at a young age but her true passion resulted after being invited by her uncle to attend one of his art classes. That is where her journey to work with oils began; however, for many years her love of art was primarily expressed through her career as an Interior Designer, having received a Bachelor of Arts in Interior Design from Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University). The use of colour in interiors was always of interest to her and she travelled to Scandinavia as a part of her studies to broaden her knowledge in this area.
Running a successful interior design business and raising two children didn’t leave her much time to pursue her painting, and it wasn’t until her children were grown and her work slowed down that Michelle was able to more fully pursue her passion painting with oils.
Wanting to further explore portrait painting, she spent time learning from Maestro Isis Rodriguez in San Miguel Allende. Since then, she has incorporated people into many of her works in order to create more interest and add human scale in her paintings.
Michelle’s strong design background has been an asset in how she approaches and completes a painting. As a designer, detail was an integral part of a successful project, in addition to strong architectural hard lines. Landscape painting proves a contrast to the structure that was necessary in her profession.
As she continues her journey, Michelle’s knowledge, experience and passion for painting the world expands. Art has no boundaries, and she seeks to continue to embrace the experience.
Karlie Norrish McChesney
Numbers, measuring, arithmetic, and formulas are the foundational tools of Karlie Norrish McChesney’s multi media art. Right out of high school Karlie worked as a draftsperson in an architectural engineering firm before pursuing her BEd and MEd in Studio Art Practices. Retired from her 30-year teaching career she now purses the arts fulltime. Karlie works in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional formats. Her creativity often expresses a fusion of mathematical ideas. Karlie’s studio is in Chilliwack, British Columbia; she exhibits her work locally in the province of British Columbia and across Canada.
Sara Mortimer
Sara has been an artist for as long as she can remember. She specializes in digital painting and mostly of people. Living in Chilliwack, BC, she will soon begin selling her work at local events in the area. Her work is inspired by the vibrant colours of her Australian childhood, and the diverse communities she’s part of. She hopes to bring optimism and joy to others through her work, and inspire others to be creative in turn.
She is eager to connect with others in the local art community, and become more involved in the events it offers.
Wendy Dewar Hughes
Wendy Dewar Hughes began her professional art career in the 1980s, painting representational watercolour landscapes, portraits, and commissions. Gallery representation resulted in her art hanging in homes and businesses on three continents.
With a goal of reaching a wider audience with her art and design, Wendy created a line of stationery products that she sold wholesale to stores all over North America, plus Australia and the UK. She has licensed her artwork to other companies in the giftware industry for several years and during this time she also had a retail store. Wendy has also taught multiple art classes in drawing, watercolour painting, and ink and watercolour. Wendy is also a writer and has written and/or illustrated twenty-nine books, as well as coaching other authors.
Recently, Wendy branched into painting with acrylic paints on canvas, which she says is “a whole different world” to watercolours. Her style is primarily warm intimate scenes that suggest a story, many reflecting her love of village life in France, where she has lived, and welcoming interiors.
Rachel Kragh
Rachel is a self-taught artist who is enamoured with soft pastels. She loves to paint “en plein air” and tries to capture light and movement in her work. She often paints landscapes but she also enjoys painting still life and floral subject matter.
Nancy Thygesen
“Nancy Thygesen (BFA, MPS) is an artist, faith-based art therapist, movement specialist and inspiring speaker, sharing and teaching through the universal languages of art and movement. Her mission in therapy and creating art is to support and inspire that creative light that heals mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically.
Her work expresses an active searching out of the ‘thin places’, those thresholds where God seems particularly close to our world, and to create a portal for the viewer to meditate in those spaces.
Nancy’s photo encaustic paintings fuse layers of beeswax/resin medium with pan pastel, giving them an opaque mystery, creating a luminescence that bridges the natural world to the spiritual. Cold wax added to oil portrays this same rarified atmosphere in abstract landscape narratives. The barrier between heaven and earth is porous because the Lord, in His kindness, met a person there.
Nancy reconnected with her artist self in the journey of completing her masters in art therapy. With 25 years teaching movement and art expression, Nancy has facilitated art therapy with women in addictions recovery, sexual abuse and trauma, and cancer survivors. Her mission in therapy and creating art is to create a safe space for healing mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. She is a facilitator for the Caring for the Wounded Heart trauma healing program (traumahealinginstitute.org) and offers her own expressive arts workshops online and in person. She also is is a certified Pilates teacher, teaching both groups and privately.
She is a member of the Harrison Art Guild, has exhibited in Edmonton (NOA Gallery), Abbotsford, and Harrison Hot Springs (Ranger Gallery) and is grateful to receive commissions. Her collaborations in Alberta )Edmonton) include: Grey Nuns and Royal Alexandra Hospitals, NOA Art Gallery, Cross Cancer Institute, ADEARA (Women’s Residential Addiction Recovery) BC: Pearl Life Renewal Ministry, Chilliwack.
Nancy married her soulmate Rick in 2013, has two amazing married adult children and grandmother to seven (doing art with them as soon as they could hold a crayon). Rick and Nancy migrate between Edmonton and Harrison Mills, BC. Her happy place is on a paddle board on the Harrison River.
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Stanislava Smiešková
“Stanislava Smiešková is an artist in Chilliwack, British Columbia.
She grew up painting and sculpting in Slovakia, where she showed her work in exhibitions.
Stanislava paints and draws in a variety of mediums: oil, acrylic, watercolour, pencil and pastel. She likes to capture the details in every scene and to use light to its full effect in landscapes. She sculpts in wood and makes statues in Paverpol.
Stanislava is a certified Paverpol instructor and welcomes new students interested in the technique.
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Hussein Rostum
“My recent paintings in British Columbia, exhibited at several venues in the Fraser Valley and the Greater Vancouver area, explore impressionistic abstract motifs while retaining a grounding sense of balance and structure.
My goal as an artist is to create colourful paintings that intrigue, engage, and inspire. I hope that my work can help motivate people to make art an enjoyable part of their lives, as it is in mine.
For me, my exhibition work conjures the freedom and joy of my continuing journey in art.”
Maaike VanderMeer
“Maaike VanderMeer is a painter. is an emerging artist who works in acrylics, watercolours and cyanotype to combine the familiar with the fantastical in vibrant abstract art. She incorporates place into her art, using foraged plants as prints in the background of acrylic paintings and creating her own inks.
Her work has been purchased by individuals in the U.S., Germany, Canada and Uganda. Last year, Maaike spent five months taking her art to farmers markets across the Fraser Valley.
Maaike is a writer as well as a painter, and is intrigued by how art can tell a story in a single frame. She is the Art and Development manager for Christian Courier, an independent Canadian paper. She publishes a weekly lyric essay, along with original art, on Substack at: www.abrokentulip.substack.com. “