2014 Arts Recognition Awards
As some of you may know, the Oakville Arts Council has presented arts recognition awards to local artists over the last five years through our Cogeco Stars Among Us event. We have been proud of this event: a very small team managed each year to deliver a very large event, but the event we held in September 2013 was the last of the series.
Recognizing the excellence of our local artists remains a part of who the Oakville Arts Council is and what we deliver to both the creative community and the public-at-large. In 2014 we presented three awards at our Annual General Meeting on November 6, 2014 at Queen Elizabeth Park Community & Cultural Centre: Emerging Artist, Established Artist and Lifetime Achievement Award. We are pleased to announce this year’s winners:
2014 Emerging Artist: Barb TenEycke
TenEycke studied interior decorating and design at Sheridan College in the late 80’s. Some basic skills in perspective drawing were acquired during this time. During her 20 plus years in the field of decorating and design, she took specialty courses on marbleizing and other interesting decorative paint techniques. Over the years, TenEycke developed a reputation in this field for expert knowledge and application. As she stills enjoys the satisfaction of this type of work, she occasionally accepts small projects. This decorative painting experience, she believes, has allowed her to fast-track her skills in the area of fine art painting. Similarly, years of working with design and colour have helped instill a general sense of composition, balance, and colour values, all coming into play in her work. TenEycke paints full time now, and is passionate about continuing her self-education through online art tutorials, workshops, the studying of other artists’ work, and most importantly ‘miles on the paintbrush’!
TenEycke creates original landscape paintings using acrylic paint on gallery style stretched canvas. She splits her time between her home in Oakville Ontario, and her family cottage near Algonquin Park. Travelling between the GTA and cottage country on rural roads, provides her with endless inspiration. Old barns, rolling fields, coming storms and foggy sunsets are the stuff of dreams for TenEycke. Her landscapes have a unique blend of realism and abstraction. Lighting, atmosphere, and depth, are key elements that she tries to convey in her work.
“When painting the Canadian landscape, my main interests are elemental; water, rocks, trees, skies. I am particularly drawn to the way light interacts with these elements,” says TenEycke. “Movement is another aspect I strive to convey in a painting. Rushing water, gentle currents in a forest stream, trees swaying in the wind, are challenges I eagerly take on. Connecting the viewer to a memory or emotion is the ultimate reward.”
Please visit www.barbteneycke.comfor more information about this artist.
2014 Established Artist: Charles Demunyck
A native of Dawson Creek, BC, Charles Demuynck holds a doctorate in conducting from the Hartt School in Hartford, Conn. He also holds conducting degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore and the University of Toronto. In addition, he is an active composer for a wide variety of instruments and ensembles, and his works have been performed on both sides of the Canada /US border.In addition, he is an active composer, and his works have been performed on both sides of the Canada-U.S.border. As the founding artistic director of Masterworks of Oakville, he is proud to lead this group of extraordinarily enthusiastic and talented musicians.
He is the Artistic Director of Masterworks of Oakville Chorus and Orchestra, which is devoted to performing the great works for chorus and orchestra (www.masterworksofoakville.ca). His previous posts include: Music Director of the Brampton Symphony Orchestra, City Centre Musical Productions (Mississauga); Assistant Conductor of the Knoxville (TN) Symphony; Music Director, Natchitoches-Northwestern Symphony Orchestra (LA); Director of Orchestras at the University of Evansville (IN), and Conducting Apprentice of the Hartford Symphony. He is the Music Director at St Andrew's Catholic Church, Oakville, and has also been music director at Stouffville United Church and Prophet Elias Greek Orthodox Church, Mississauga.
Charles Demuynck was Music Director of the Oakville Chamber Orchestra from 1995 to 2002 and returned in 2007 to make music with his friends. He has guest conducted extensively in Europe and the U.S. and with the following Canadian orchestras: Orchestra London, Mississauga Symphony, Oshawa¬-Durham Symphony, Cathedral Bluffs Symphony, Etobicoke Philharmonic, Prince George Symphony, National Academy Orchestra, Royal Conservatory New Music Ensemble, Lethbridge Symphony, North York Concert Orchestra and the Philharmonie des Jeunes d'Ottawa-Carleton. His CD of Beethoven's Symphony No.8 and Brahms' Piano Concerto No.2 with pianist Garnet Ungar and the Varna Philharmonic is on the Americus label (www.americuscd.com).
Visit www.oakvillechamberorchestra.comfor more information.
2014 Lifetime Achievement Award: Naoko Matusbara
Oakville is home to a significant number of visual artists who have been working in their fields for many years. With so much talent to choose from, our juries are often challenged to choose just one artist. As you will see from her extensive list of accomplishments, our work was made easier for the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award. You may recognize her work from the mural installed at the YMCA. We are thrilled to be able to present this award to Naoko Matusbara and thank Maureen Latocki for her nomination.
This distinguished woodcut print artist was born on Shikoku Island into an old Shinto family, and grew up in Kyoto, where her father was a senior priest. She was educated at the Kyoto Academy of Fine Art (BFA, 1960); and was a Fulbright Scholar at what is now Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh (MFA, 1962). She was also a Special Invited Student at the Royal College of Art in London (1962).
After travelling extensively in Europe and Asia, Naoko Matsubara returned to Japan for two years, before being lured back to the United States. There she worked as personal assistant to the late Prof. Fritz Eichenberg, and also taught at the Pratt Institute of Graphic Art in New York, as well as at the University of Rhode Island. Subsequently she lived in Cambridge, Mass.
In 1972 Naoko Matsubara moved to Canada, and now lives in Oakville, Ontario. She has continued to be extremely active as an artist: locally, nationally and internationally. Since 1960 she has had some 75 solo exhibitions, in the USA, Canada, Japan, England, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Holland and Mexico. She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions.
Public collections owning work by Naoko Matsubara include: Albertina, Vienna; Art Institute of Chicago; British Museum; Carnegie Institute; Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Cincinnati Art Museum; Detroit Institute of Art; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University; Haifa Museum, Israel; Kyoto National Museum of Modern Art; Royal Ontario Museum; The White House, Washington DC; Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art; Yale University Art Gallery.
Naoko Matsubara has published some 20 books and portfolios of her work, including most recently Tibetan Sky (Calgary: Bayeux Arts Publishers, 1997; Preface by the Dalai Lama); Tokonoma (Bath, England: Old School Press, 1999); and Konjaku monogatari (Tokyo: ALIS, 2002). Her work also includes a large mural and donor pillar for the new YMCA building in Oakville, Ontario (2003); mixed-media screens; and paintings. In 2005, the Royal Ontario Museum commissioned two large works from Naoko Matsubara for the Museum’s Bloor Street window case. The artist generously donated a third work, Emerald Summer (2006). The three works (each 195 cm. high by 95 cm. wide) will be rotated at regular intervals into the outside window. This is the first commissioned artwork to be displayed on the Museum’s Bloor Street Plaza. She also recently completed commissions for Chatham University in Pittsburgh and the City of St. Catharines, Ontario.
Recent major exhibitions have been in Tokyo, Kyoto, Indiana, and Toronto (Royal Ontario Museum). Further exhibitions are currently being planned in Seattle and Tokyo; new books in process include In Praise of Hands. She also continues to travel widely; is frequently invited to speak about her work; and also publishes essays, in both English and Japanese.
Naoko Matsubara’s work has been the subject of countless articles and reviews; documentary films (including two from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation); and several book-length publications: notably Mokuhan: The Woodcuts of Munakata and Matsubara (text by Joan Stanley-Baker; Victoria, BC: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 1976); Naoko Matsubara: Development of Artistic Style and Technique (text by Barbara Woodworth; MFA thesis, Harvard University, 1985); and Tree Spirit. The Woodcuts of Naoko Matsubara (text by Arlene Gehmacher, Klaas Ruitenbeek and John M. Rosenfield; Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum, 2003).
For more information about Sensei Matsubara, visit http://abbozzogallery.com/nk/
