Horses toiling in the fields. Sheep grazing. Cows heading home for milking. These are among the bucolic images now on display at the Arbor Gallery until the end of August. In Tales from the County, artist Crystal Beshara shares the places, the stories and faces of the people who feed us, work the fields, build and restore our historic structures.
“My upbringing greatly influenced my lens on the world,” claims Beshara, who was raised in Eastern Ontario and now lives in L’Orignal. “My artwork is an outlet for contemplative exploration of deeper concepts reflecting on how we, as humans, relate to an ever-changing landscape and environment.”
Beshara is an international, multi- award-winning contemporary realist painter who has exhibited alongside some of North America’s best wildlife artists. She has been drawing and painting since childhood and moves easily between watercolour, oil and dry media. Her work is recognizable for its rich, earth toned palette and emotionally charged, rural narrative.
A record of the past
“We live in a rural area and it is inspiring to be exhibiting an artist who is recording this vanishing way of life,” says Arbor Board Chair Sylvie Bouchard. “Visitors will recognize scenes from the Vankleek Hill Agricultural Fair and the local passion for antique tractors, among other scenes.”
“Painting rural subject matter for me is both a cathartic and documentative means to record a way of life that is slowly disappearing,“ Beshara adds. ”It serves as a history of the homesteads, the people, animals and agriculture of this land.”
Beshara’s work has been featured in American Art Collector, Fine Art Connoisseur and International Artist Magazine, on CBC television and radio, TVO and CTV television. She is also a regularly invited juror and arts educator who offers painting workshops abroad as well as in her home studio in L’Orignal.
Tales from the County runs from August 5th to 28th, with the vernissage taking place Sunday August 6th from 1 to 3 p.m.
The Arbor Gallery is open Wednesday to Sunday, noon to 4 p.m., 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays during summer. Admission to exhibits is always free. It is located at 36 Home Avenue, in the heart of Vankleek Hill.
