Sidney artist Odette Laroche is joining fellow Federation of Canadian Artists member Linda Anderson in a joint show at the Coast Collective Gallery in Colwood this month.
Laroche, who runs her own gallery and teaches painting to area students, is looking forward to showing her collected works at Bold Living Paintings, July 3 to 14. On July 6, she will be at an open house where people can meet the artists and see them in action.
Laroche creates images in bold colours, thick with texture, depicting scenes that, while not completely real, evoke memory in each viewer. She said her work — done mainly in oils in techniques she has honed over her many years of painting — invokes the feeling that the viewer has been there before.
“If I want a place to be recognizable, I will look at the form and structure of the place and translate it into my work,” she said.
“It’s a path and a journey that the viewer takes.”
For her, painting is a journey and she enjoys it immensely. She mainly works in landscapes but does make the odd foray into portraits, which requires her to work more realistically.
“My goal in painting is be make them uplifting, enjoyable, with lots of colour and texture. I want to take people to a place they haven’t been before, or maybe trigger a memory.”
The show in Colwood this month will feature some of Laroche’s larger works, many of which she keeps in her gallery off of Beacon Avenue, next to the Fairway Market. It’s also there where she hosts students, young and old, who want to learn to express their art.
Later this month, on July 20, Laroche will also be at the Greater Victoria Art Gallery Paint-In.