Liz Toohey-Wiese will open her studio at the Caetani Cultural Centre.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Caetani Cultural Centre
June 15, 2021 - 6:00 PM
A Vancouver-based artist is exploring Okanagan wildfires and the connection to tourism, the economy, grief and renewal through her work.
The Caetani Cultural Centre artist-in-resident Liz Toohey-Wiese's work can be seen along Highway 97, north of Vernon on the way to Kamloops, on a billboard.
The billboard featured a painting of a wildfire with the words “Come Back Soon” emblazoned on the top.
The piece was part of Toohey-Wiese’s exploration on the topic of wildfires and now she’s opening her studio to the public to show paintings and sculptures based on a site visit last year to the Christie Mountain fire outside Penticton, according to a press release from the centre.
Toohey-Wiese has visited the Okanagan the past two summers to investigate the fire-adapted landscape through her art practice.
“My interest in wildfires came after the summers of 2017 and 2018 when Vancouver had wildfire smoke drifting into the city for weeks on end,” she said in the release. “I’ve always been a landscape painter, but wildfires started to take up a lot of space in my mind when I was making paintings of places in B.C.”
Last summer, while at the Caetani Centre, Toohey-Wiese self-published the book Fire Season on the topic of wildfires. The book is a form of collective sense-making of the increased severity and frequency of wildfire through a collection of art, poetry, and essays created by more than 40 contributors.
Toohey-Wiese will open her studio at the Caetani Centre, located at 3401 Pleasant Valley Rd., June 25, from 6 to 9 p.m. COVID-19 safety protocols will be in place.
For more information, visit the centre’s website here or call 250-275-1525.
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