CHERYL TAVES

Cheryl Taves is a visual artist from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Working in mixed media painting on panel and drawing and painting on Mylar, her interest is in the nuanced language of abstraction.

The act of relationship, specifically areas of growth and dissolution, informs Cheryl’s work. Moving between direct and indirect paint applications, layers of applied papers and abraded surfaces, her work explores the elements of structure and gesture, allowing for an edgy tension and elegance to coexist, exuding a certain gritty beauty.

Cheryl graduated from the Victoria College of Art in 2004. During that time, along with three other contemporary artists, Cheryl established The Store Studio, an artist-run studio and gallery space in downtown Victoria. There she exhibited a diverse body of work consisting of drawing, painting, and sculpture. This breadth of experience secured Cheryl representation by both the Fran Willis Gallery and the View Art Gallery in Victoria, along with Atti Gallery in Toronto.

Cheryl is a long-standing member of a weekly critical discussion group led by painter Bill Porteous, with a focus on abstraction, providing critical feedback and dialogue around her work and the work of her contemporaries. These in-depth discussions in art-making continue to strengthen Cheryl’s engagement with abstraction and the creative position that informs her work.

Her home studio is a light-filled space located in a rural community just outside of Victoria, situated in the nature that influences her work. The cycles of decay and renewal offer reminders of recurrent themes that occupy her formal concerns – change, growth, deconstruction and reconstruction.

ARTIST STATEMENT : DIALOGUE SERIES

The Dialogue Series is a body of work created between 2020 and 2021 during the Covid lockdowns. This work arrived as a direct response to my observations around being isolated and how that precipitated a deeper internal dialogue. The series is also connected to themes of discourse, communication, impulse and obsession.

The core works of the Dialogue Series are composed of twelve 24x18 inch panels, developed in pairs. I focus on the dialogue between them, along with my internal dialogue, as I work with the various compositional elements. Each panel needs to stand alone, being a complete and whole statement, but when partnered with its companion piece becomes stronger through that pairing, creating something new. In this dialogue I am using juxtaposition to arrive at an interface, where one plus one equals three.

The working process begins with paper being mounted onto cradled panels to offer an inviting surface for various layers of drawing media, acrylic paint, and collage. Instability is exploited as paint is dragged across waxy surfaces, breaking and mixing with what lies beneath.

Through the language of abstraction, I am responding to the inherent phenomenological and personal meanings that are found in colour, form, line. I employ the same freedom that my sketchbook practice offers me – responding from that same internal sensitivity, and arriving at a pleasing, yet edgy composition