By Hilary Peach
Perched on the hillside above Stewart Ave, tucked behind the white fuel tanks of the Chevron station, is a heritage miner’s cottage of obviously humble beginnings. But it has just been spruced up, newly painted, and has a tidy little flowerbed in front inhabited by miniature fairies and life-sized rabbits. This is The Cottage Studio, the new workspace of painter Patricia Banks.
Banks has just made the move from her downtown Nanaimo studio to this quiet retreat so she can work without distraction. “People would come in all day long and we’d talk and I loved it,” she explains “but I didn’t get anything done. I have all these unfinished paintings.”
These works in progress have not yet been unpacked and the studio is immaculate, with paintings and prints neatly stacked in rows in one of the two rooms of the cottage. Banks begins to pull them out, landscapes, nature paintings, and wide seascapes of places like The Broken Islands and Chesterman Beach on Vancouver Island’s West Coast. In many of them, the view is to the sea, with a broad horizon and huge, luminous sky. As she pulls out each painting she explains what the day was like when she was in the place that inspired it. “The West Coast is such a spiritual place. There is such power and strength, serenity and calmness, fear and safety, and such a sense of peace. We walked down from the Wikanninish Inn and there were these huge waves breaking, they must have been twenty feet high. I couldn’t believe them, and I tried to put that feeling of wonder, of vastness into the painting.”
Although these depictions of place are almost photographically realistic, Banks takes poetic license with her subjects, transforming a season from summer to fall, changing the colour of the sky, adding an imaginary island, or erasing several miles of unsightly power lines. The result is reminiscent of magic realism, with the effect that the viewer is reminded of a particular place, but can’t quite determine where it is. Says Banks, “I try to capture the emotions of the place, some of the energy I felt when I was there, because it’s emotionally and spiritually healing, and nurturing at the same time. If I can do that I feel more like a whole person, and if I can get that from my work, if I can capture at least some of that energy and put it into my paintings, I can help other people.”
It is no surprise that Banks has focused on the healing aspect of her art practice. For twenty-six years she was a critical care nurse, ministering to the comfort of other people. For three of those years she worked in the burn unit, honing an ability to see the big picture, as well as her eye for detail. “You have to be able to see it all,” she explains, “to know what has just happened, to see what’s going on with the family… because you have to put the person completely at their ease, so that they’re relaxed, while you’re doing these incredibly painful procedures on them. But you have to be really detail-oriented at the same time, doing skin grafts, changing dressings, really precise. The amazing thing was, you could actually see the tissue growth from one day to the next.”
The self-described over-achiever now applies her keen eye and focus to the finer points of art, recreating an arbutus tree so visually tactile you can feel the bark, a mushroom with such precision you want to touch it. Banks laughs as she tells the story of one critic who visited her studio and suggested she “get a bigger brush”. Shortly thereafter Banks won second prize (and a considerable cash sum) in International Artist Magazine (2007 June/July Issue #55), proving brush-size isn’t everything.
It seems a long way from the hospital trauma ward to this tranquil cottage studio, and it required some soul-searching for Banks to make the career change, six years ago. “All I wanted to do was paint,” she explains, “but how could I, after I’d looked after other people all my life, do what seemed like such a self-gratifying kind of a thing? I thought it would be frivolous and self-indulgent.” Through the advice of friends, and from the sense of improved well being that came from painting, Banks came to realize that there were healing aspects to her work. “I decided to do it because of the benefit it was giving me. I wanted to pass that benefit on to other people through my paintings.”
These days Patricia Banks is also passing on the benefit of her talent, which is considerable, her eye for detail, and her experience as a teacher. With four years teaching workshops through the Vancouver Island University Continuing Education Program under her belt, Banks is looking forward to teaching individuals and small groups. She is currently accepting private students, and will be starting a number of watercolour and drawing workshops this fall. You can see Patricia Banks’ work on display at the downtown Nanaimo Vancouver Island Public Library in November. To arrange a showing by appointment, call 250-751-4249 or email artist@patriciabanks.ca. Patricia Banks work can also be seen on line at: patriciabanks.ca
This article appeared in the November December 2008 issue of More Living magazine.
New Gallery Location!
Come and view international award-winning Canadian Artist Patricia Banks works at her beautiful new gallery in the heart of Nanaimo's downtown “Arts District”. Let her incredible seascpes inspire you, or the delicate details of a floral enchant you. See how she expertly combines elements of realism and impressionism in all her paintings. 39 Wharf Street, Nanaimo, BC
