The 2024 painting year has seen Terrill Welch develop two new series with fewer than usual landscape paintings completed in her more familiar compositions. The “Summer of Flowers” series is vibrant, colourful and exudes joy and resilience while the “Sea Floor Series” has a rhythmic flow that often instils a sense of inner peace and wellbeing. We found it hard to choose just twelve out of the total of 37 new paintings released this year. However, here is our final selection of twelve that can be viewed together with full details at the link below…
https://www.artworkarchive.com/rooms/terrill-welch/237fa0
Or, please feel free to browse our summary reviews for each selected artwork…
Artist notes: It was so cold that ice was about two inches thick on the sandstone and the sea spray was freezing like mist as it was blown across rolling waves. Yet, the seals rested in their usual place. This painting is part of a new series idea that is developing. The paint brush marks are the impressions of nature and the screws, wire and tiles are the intervention by our human species. This work will always interact in noticeable ways with its immediate physical environment through the light, reflections and shadows of the materials. In this way, the painting remains a work-in-progress forever.
Artist notes: It is a late morning in mid March with a substantially low tide giving me confidence to go past the cliff on the shore of Sombrio Beach. Crisscrossing and scrambling up the creek a short distance there is a hidden wonder with deep layers of mystery. How might the light fall in this place through out a day and over a year? I shall be back to see again at a different time. I am sure of it!
Artist notes: Winter storms repeatedly expose more than 4,000 years of Indigenous history over laid by a comparatively brief and recent settler disruption. There is a story in this painting about being witness and holding space for remembrance, observation and most significantly action by drawing attention to these middens.
Artist Notes: An icy northwest wind whips up the Salish Sea in the Strait of Georgia with such playful laughter that I forget that I didn’t put my wool sweater on under my rain jacket. Such abandoned glee can do that.
Artist notes: The peonies continue to open as I paint. Could they hear the paint being brushed across the linen? Could they feel their shapes being formed under my hand? Could this have precipitated some desire of their own? Most likely it was the warmth in the art studio. Still, they turned and spiralled with graceful ease. If there is an inner peace to be expanded upon through nature, this seems like a good place to start.
Artist notes: A hollowed out driftwood stump frames the morning view during a brief rest before meandering back along the trails.
Artist notes: As I finish this painting in the soft filtered light of a summer Sunday, the world seems to have shifted just slightly to something brighter and more hopeful.
Artist note: There is a special kind of mysterious intrigue to the land up close at the edge of sea during a low tide. A large macro landscape offers not just a change of perspective but access to a world we likely visit less often as adults… unless in the company of children.
Artist notes: Coneflowers hover like bumblebees over the soft textured dahlias and flouncing snapdragons. The excitement is palpable. I lay out the pigments and disappear into the shapes and colours of an early October still life.
Artist notes: I had gone to Bennett Bay and along the beach to where a seasonal creek was flowing into the sea and washing over seashells along the way. These varnish clamshells created a light musical sound as the water passed over them. The beauty of the shapes and sounds create a textured resonance in my being. For those moments, inner peace is held, in those shapes, in those colours and those sounds. In my painting, I find inner peace in the abstracted loosen of the brushstrokes, gifted to the linen surface without misgivings or hesitation. This is the full body experience I aim to capture in this small painting completed in oil, wet-in-wet, in the studio a month later from when I physically stood on that shore.
Artist notes: After the storm, interesting broken and worn bits on the sea floor at Reef Bay were arranged by the Salish Sea. I accepted nature’s invitation to explore and discover their shapes and patterns in a delicate collage of reference materials that only become integrated under my brush.
Artist notes: The light has been as heavy as the west coast rains these past few days. I finally was able to lift my brushes and drape pigments onto the linen surface painting alla prima in the studio. There is a sense of impermanence softening the edges in the room. The colours break a part and drift as if the petals have already been released from their stems, hovering in place for a few more brief moments. This is the tenth and last bouquet delivered by the farmer for my series of “Summer of Flowers”.
In summary, 2024 has seen fourteen of Terrill Welch’s paintings join art collectors private collections.
Art collectors have thoughtfully considered and purchased significantly more larger paintings in 2024.
Art collectors have shared Terrill Welch’s paintings with their networks online and brought their friends and family to visit the physical gallery and the Mayne Island Resort where there are over thirty of her paintings exhibited in their lobby and conference rooms.
Art collectors have browsed, generously commented in the gallery guestbook, signed up for Terrill Welch’s newsletter and asked numerous intriguing questions while she has shown them around both the Terrill Welch Gallery Pod and her home studio.
Some paintings have stayed in magnificent homes on Mayne Island.
And some have gone out of country, like this one that has nestled itself into a lovely home in Portland, Oregon.
For all of this, thank you! We do not take your decision to steward one of my paintings for granted – ever! During what has been a challenging year for many, thank you for your continued patronage and may Terrill Welch’s paintings in your art collection bring you many years of viewing pleasure!
On a final note, the Terrill Welch Gallery Pod continues to be open daily 11-4 throughout the year for walk in self-browsing or online at the links provided below. We look forward to seeing or hearing from you again soon!
Happy New Year and may 2025 offer you kindness, generosity, good health and wellbeing!
Sincerely,
The Terrill Welch Gallery Team
“I am a painter connecting art and nature one brushstroke at a time.” ~ Terrill Welch
ONLINE GALLERIES include –
ArtWork Archive – original paintings and acrylic sketches currently available
ARTSY with the International Opulent Art Gallery in the United Kingdom – representing select paintings
