by Mar Desmet & Pamela Desmet Franklin
A mother & daughter retrospective exploring recurring themes & imagery.
June 27 to July 9, Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 5pm, First Friday, July 5, 11am to 9pm, additional evenings by appointment.
Meet Pamela daily during exhibition hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 2-4pm. First Friday, 5-9pm.
125 Adelaide Street, 2nd floor; 204-944-0809 or Jordan@cre8ery.com
Exhibit Statement: Parallel Pathways: A mother & daughter retrospective exploring recurring themes & imagery. Mar Desmet & Pamela Desmet Franklin. Curated by Jeanne Downing.
Perhaps on life’s journey we travel along parallel pathways, moving toward a common destination, restricted by our similar biologies, maybe shaped by comparable upbringings, but never diverging from our paths. The drive to create beauty, to make some sense of the chaos, to create something meaningful that wasn’t in the world before…Then, although our paths never converge and despite all their similarities, we remain as far apart from each other at the end of our course as we did at the beginning. This is our relationship: that across the chasm of our separate understandings, we have occasionally reached our hands across the void of our fragile and tenuous humanity and found a certain empathy.
My mother, Mar Desmet, was my first teacher about appreciating and creating art. Although our styles are quite different, I can feel her influence in my process, in taking risks and the importance of finding ones’ own truth. As I am creating, I may see her echo in the use of colour, line or focus or hear her voice in critique as we look over her works from art school for the day. Separate, but always together, mother and daughter; I hope you enjoy and have some fun recognizing the nuances of relationship in our works.
Biography/Artist Statement Mar Desmet: Mar Desmet, B Ed, BFA Honours and Former Art Educator with Winnipeg School Division #1, has exhibited paintings at the Fleet, cre8ery, & MAWA galleries, and has shown her work at the Faculties of Fine Art and Education Art Galleries at the University of Manitoba, at her former home & studio at Victoria Beach and local businesses, as well as the Tombstone Art Gallery in Arizona. Mar helped to develop the Sun Country Arts & Crafts group in the East Beaches area of Lake Winnipeg, acting as vice, president and past president for over 35 years and is currently a lifetime member!
Characteristically drawing and painting with pen, ink and stick, Mar’s unique style is featured in the homes and offices of many happy art collectors. Mar has drawn inspiration from the various amazing natural landscapes that she has witnessed in her travels, always with pen and pencil in hand, to places across Canada and other countries including Mexico, USA, France, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Barbados, and Hawaii. Her vibrant mixed media and acrylic paintings allow the observer to feel the beauty and energy of her exuberant artwork in moments that she has captivated on canvas and paper. Mar explains that a significant piece in Parallel Pathways, Irises on Marion Street, ”Is a riot of color and exuberance for the place I first lived with my husband, raised our children and where I decided at the age of 40 to go to university for the first time and receive my BFA Honours and B Ed Degrees.”
Biography Pamela Desmet Franklin: Multiplatform Artist, Pamela Desmet Franklin, @pameladesmetfranklinart, combines inspiration and images from the natural world in photography, mixed media, found object sculpture, collage, watercolour & ink, acrylic painting and fabric arts including dyeing with botanicals & fibre reactive dyes. Experimentation and the urge to create from materials at hand intrigues this artist who utilizes both traditional and novel processes for exciting outcomes. Pamela has exhibited at Martha Street Studio, C2, Fleet, cre8ery, Buhler, The Pavilion at Assiniboine Park, MAWA, & Prairie Fusion Galleries. Her art can be seen @pameladesmetfranklinart & alternative gallery spaces: El Spa & Gordies’ Coffee House.
Pamela Artist Statement: In Parallel Pathways I have had the opportunity to select pieces from a variety of different mediums, hopefully complimenting the themes and imagery of my mother, Mar Desmet’s work. Many of my pieces are based on subjects from the area of the Lake Winnipeg watershed that continuously holds me in its thrall with its variety of life in all its variable weathers and in all its torrent of seasons.
I’d like to thank Jeanne Downing for curating this exhibit, for all her help with framing, painting and myriad acts to get our pieces gallery ready and on the wall. Thank you, my friend for going above and beyond!