Dawn, 2019

Anne Popperwell has been painting and exhibiting in both public and private galleries for over thirty years. Her works in watercolor and acrylic on canvas are included in private, corporate, and public collections in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, and Europe.

Popperwell’s primary inspiration has always been the natural world. She moved to Saturna Island in the Southern Gulf Islands in British Columbia to paint the particular landscape of the eroded sandstone shoreline and she began to experiment with materials, scale, and colour to explore the experience and concept of “a sense of place.”

Popperwell’s series of acrylic paintings, Luminous Horizons, are impressions drawn from the islands in the Salish Sea where the artist practices. Light is fleeting, still for a moment, ephemeral and transitory. The notion of light is central to her practice. Popperwell’s works investigate its symbolic and spiritual meanings, both in life and in art. Light is the first and last human experience and it guides both waking and dream states. For Popperwell, light informs our sense of time and place. Her work teeters between figuration and abstraction, movement and stillness, matter and light.

Biography

Born: Oakland, California

Education:  1968-1970 San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California

Solo Exhibitions:

2016     “Shades of Saturna”, Artlink Canada, Jaydon Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia

2009     “Beauty”  Casa Dahlia Galeria, San Jose del Cabo, Mexico

2008     “Tropical Flowers”  Casa Dahlia Galeria, San Jose del Cabo, Mexico

1996.     “Why Don’t You Just Leave?”  Art Gallery of Greater Victoria

1993      Fran Willis Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia

1986      Robert Vanderleelie Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia

Thomas Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba

1984      Grace Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia

Winchester Galleries, Victoria, British Columbia

1982      Kyle’s Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia

1981      Kyle’s Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia

Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia

Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby, British Columbia

1980      Kamloops Public Art Gallery, Kamloops, British Columbia

Selected Group Exhibitions:

2019       Matzke Fine Art Gallery and Sculpture Park, Camano, Washington

2014       Insight Art Gallery, Galiano, B.C.

2012      The Field Gallery, San Jose del Cabo, Mexico

2002       “European Media Arts Festival”, Osnabruck, Germany

1997       “Open House”, Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, France

1994      “Spring Run”,  Bau-Xi Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia

1992      “Hanging Gardens”,  Fran Willis Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia

1990      “Bumbershoot Festival 1990”,   Seattle, Washington

1986      “Images B.C.”   The British Columbia Pavilion, Expo 86

Vancouver, British Columbia

1985      “Hot Water Colour”,   Harbourfront, Toronto, Ontario

“B.C. Women Artists”

Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia

1983       “National Watercolour Exhibition”

Contemporary Art Gallery,  Vancouver, British Columbia

1981       “Painter’s Day”,   Kyle’s Gallery, Victoria, B.C.

Public Collections

British Columbia Art Collection, Victoria, British Columbia

Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia

Maltwood Art Museum, Victoria, British Columbia

City of Vancouver, Vancouver, British Columbia

Esso Resources Canada, Ltd., Calgary, Alberta

Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa, Ontario

Grants and Awards

1995  British Columbia Cultural Services Branch grant

1973  City of Vancouver Purchase Grant

Exhibition Reviews, Catalogues and Articles

“A Sense of Place”, Aqua magazine, Salt Spring Island, B.C. (Summer 2014) illus.

“Why Don’t You Just Leave?”,  Exhibition Catalogue, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, B.C. (April, 1996) illus.

Cover, Preview Magazine, Vancouver, B.C., (May/June 1990)

Waterman, Jennifer A. “Planetary Visions, Sacred Images of the Earth”  Herizons, Winnipeg, Manitoba (Volume 4 #8, December, 1986) p. 44, illus.

“B.C. Women Artists”,Exhibition Catalogue, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, B.C. (October, 1985)  illus.

Orford, Emily Jane,  “Anne Popperwell’s Intimate Earth”, Victoria Times-Colonist, Victoria, B.C. (October 7, 1984) p. 8

Hartog, Diana, “Body Landscapes”, Monday Magazine, Victoria, B.C. (October 28, 1982)

Hartog, Diana, “Drunk with the Particular”, Monday Magazine, Victoria, B.C. (January 23, 1981) p. 16

“Anne Popperwell”,  Exhibition Catalogue, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, B.C. (October 1981) illus.