No stranger to the Bow Valley, artist Dominik Modlinski returns to Banff this Saturday with Horizons, a show of new work at wCanada House Gallery.
“Every two years I have a solo show at Canada House, since 2001, and each show is focused on one or two recent trips,” said Modlinski.
“(Canada House) is one of my prime galleries, and I lived in Calgary for five years, so I have a very close connection to the Rockies,” he added. “The staff is amazing, very easy to work with and it’s an excellent gallery, so it’s a really good working environment.”
Currently based in Nanaimo, B.C., Modlinski was born in Poland in 1970 and immigrated to Canada in the ’80s.
A predominant focus of Horizons, which opens Saturday (May 4) is a recent expedition to Baja California in western Mexico.
“It took me five and a half weeks by motorbike – I travel very light, mostly camping along the way, and I was sketching every day,” he said, noting he returned from the trip about a month ago.
“The majority of my work is landscape, and I try to go as far north or as far south as I can, to lots of remote places, and get involved in lots of environmental projects and paint places that are in danger by industry and to places that aren’t very accessible – I get to them by kayaking or backpacking,” he said.
One of Modlinski’s favourite places to go is the northernmost reaches of British Columbia.
“I did a bicycle trip in 1995, from Whitehorse to Vancouver, and from the Yukon I made a little detour from the Alaska Highway to a little place called Atlin, which is the most northernly community in British Columbia and on the largest freshwater lake in B.C.,” he said. “I got stuck for a month, and since then I’ve been returning every year.
“Right now I have a cabin there and I use it as my basecamp for explorations into the Yukon and Alaska.”
His work, which consists of large-scale canvas oil paintings, is based on photos and sketches from his travels, he said.
“I photograph and sketch on location and then later on use those as reference to create large studio work. Most of my summers are spent outside, and fortunately I’m lucky enough in winter to go to warmer places to extend my season that way,” he said. “I enjoy painting a varied landscape, but also I find similarities between those places around the world.”
Some of those winter places include South America, Antarctica and the southern United States.
For this show, Modlinski will present 16 framed drawings and about 20 unframed drawings, for the Baja portion, and then a selection of works from an expedition to the mountains around Bella Coola on the B.C. coast, during fall – meaning there will be an abundance of fall colours. The show will also have a number of large paintings, both from the coast and Yukon.
“The fun part of the show is I’m planning to drive my bike to Banff, and it will be inside the gallery during the show, so people will get a firsthand experience of how I actually travel,” he said.
An artist reception will be held at the gallery from 1-3 p.m.
