Nancy Kembry

New Paintings

Dec 1-22, 2001

Toronto-based painter Nancy Kembry, widely known for her pear paintings, has been producing still-life paintings for the last twenty years. Working from memory Kembry begins by drawing on the prepared canvas: “...like a crocus nudging its way through snow. Working with chance, intuition, faith and experience the tango begins. The underpainting is quickly lavished on and it's brassy, it's awkward, it's intense, and much like teenage years, one friggin' tease. The following layers of oil mature the work, suffuse it with light and shadow, inviting thought and reflection.”

Kembry sees her work as “a poetic-philosophical exploration of the intellectual and emotional enigmas of life and death, non-moralizing, not imitating external appearances, commonplace and extraordinary.”

She has dedicated this show to the memories of Stan and Flo Kembry, Anna-Marie Cobbold and Michael J Baker.