PRESS RELEASE:

Solo Exhibition at Orange Gallery January 2012

In her first solo show of the year, Fine Artist & Illustrator Crystal Beshara

revisits her true love, the bucolic scenes of the

Ottawa Valley.

LOCATION: 233 Armstrong St. Ottawa, ON

ORANGE GALLERY  

opens 2012 with Beshara's solo show "Winter's Promise" in which she illustrates her love for everything rural in original oil paintings on wood panel. From the tactile wool of a pair of Swaledale sheep to the doe eyed stare of a pretty Jersey. From sparse corn stalks standing in crisp white snow to the fallen skeleton of an abandon barn, her dramatic imagery is sure to warm the heart.

It is for good reason that these paintings are as sentimental as they are precise. An ex farm girl, Beshara spent her childhood recording her surroundings and her creativity is still deeply rooted in those memories. It is with this brand new body of work that she shares a cozy slice of nostalgia.

2011 was a big year for artist Crystal Beshara. In January her 3rd illustrated children's book was released. In June she was honoured with a second grant from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation an international award which supports young artists working exclusively in realism. In September she lead her group of 10 art students to Santa Fe where they painted in the sun under cerulean skies surrounded by the heat of the coral landscape. While there she was invited to attend the Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts  where she met Judy Chicago and fellow realist, internationally renowned watercolourist Robert Highsmith. During her visit she also solidified a solo watercolour show for 2012 at Marigold Gallery (Santa Fe). It's all in a days work for this multi-tasker and multi - disciplined painter.

A visit to her crowded Ottawa studio would yield not only a glimpse of different mediums; oil, watercolour, pen & ink, pastel and pencil, but their accomplished use in works varying in style and subject from earthy, textural rural Ontario landscapes and detailed, English pastorals, to hot, saturated Southwestern scenes, and  contemporary portraits. While such variety demonstrates diverse skills, one thing remains Crystal clear – a true artist’s love of realism, rendered with passion and perseverance.