Nadina Tandy, Red Thread (2009), acrylic on canvas [Doris Crowston Gallery, Sunshine Coast Arts Centre, Sechelt BC, Feb 4-Mar 1]

Nadina Tandy, Witch Door (2009), acrylic on canvas [Doris Crowston Gallery, Sunshine Coast Arts Centre, Sechelt BC, Feb 4-Mar 1]

Nadina Tandy is a Vancouver-born, Sunshine Coast artist who explores the effects of layering surrealist shapes and totemic imagery. Overworked surfaces are scratched and scraped, images and figures over-painted, and objects obscured just below the surfacesof each piece. Witch Door shows ritual marks that were often inscribed on the doors of homes and barns to deflect the evil eye. The image is reminiscent of an archaeological dig.

Whether creating linear, Modigliani-like pictures of figurative forms, as she did in an earlier series, or murky symbolic expressionist pastiches of colour and scumbled brushwork, Tandy appears to emphasize the narrative and surreal aspects of her subject matter. In recent imagery, themes of immersion, emergence and surfacing conjure up accounts of evolution and discovery. The inner life is her subject. Inspired by mythology, colours, contrasts, shapes and dreams, she works in an experimental fashion until, as she puts it, “I reach that place where it feels right and there is enough of an edge to please me.”

In 1986, Tandy studied photography at Concordia University, Montreal and painting at the Emily Carr School of Art and Design, Vancouver. In 1985 she earned a Fine Arts Diploma at Vancouver Community College, Langara. She has worked in a variety of mediums throughout her career, including oil pastel on paper, ink and wax, photo transfer and acrylic on board, and has exhibited extensively in the Sunshine Coast area.

www.scartscouncil.com

Mia Johnson