Cheryl Painter

Cheryl Painter
Exploring The Elements Of Nature

Fire, Water, Air & Earth
April 17 - May 6
Reception: April 17, 5-7pm


Cheryl Painter was born and raised in the beautiful Cowichan Valley. From an early age and perhaps due to artistic genes, a career as an artist always seemed to be in the cards for Cheryl. Her post secondary schooling included an introduction to Fine Arts at the University of Victoria followed by a year at the Victoria College of Art. She moved to North Vancouver to attend Capilano University, culminating with a diploma in Graphic design. After a successful career in that field, Cheryl left the graphic design field to focus on raising a family. During that endeavour, she found windows of time to resume what would ultimately be her career calling - painting. Living on the North Shore began to wear thin and so in 2013, she and her family heeded the call to return to their roots on Vancouver Island, specifically in the Cowichan Valley. Here, amidst the area’s pristine beauty, she is constantly inspired by her surroundings.

Cheryl’s most recent works are an exploration of the basic elements. Fire: a series of campfire paintings, full of warmth and West Coast camping memories. Water: works featuring both salt and fresh water, the quintessential West Coast. Air: Cheryl’s brushwork brings alive mist, clouds and windswept fields. Earth: numerous local landscapes.

Remnants: The 13th Annual Show of the She Said Art Collective

Remnants
13th Annual She Said Show
March 6- 25, 2026
Opening Reception: March 6, 5-7pm

This is the 13th year that a group of women have come together to create an art show inspired by various subjects, quotes, poetry, and music. Each artist creates her own response to the theme utilizing materials that she chooses to work with. Some of the artists have participated since the very beginning while others have joined at different times. 

This year the women of She Said were inspired by the words of Jack Ravi, a collage and assemblage artist who lives in Scotland:

”The title "Remnants” carries a dual meaning... it refers not only to the materials used but also to the people whose stories are being told.  The old ephemera, found objects, and photographs gets excavated by such a word as someone's life and story. Remnants is an ode to the art of preservation,  both of memories and materials and a testament to the ever evolving nature of art and visual storytelling." 

The theme of this exhibit leaves each artist open to so many possibilities.   We hope that you will come see the show and enjoy the remnants the She Said collective has brought back to life.

Fluff and Fold

Fluff and Fold
Jim Erikson
Nov 28- Dec 20, 2025
Opening Reception: Nov 28, 5-7pm

Jim Erikson:

I was born and raised in a tiny farming community in northern Minnesota, 12 miles from the Manitoba border, midway between the Lake of the Woods and the North Dakota state line. Locals lived on small, subsistence farms scattered along the graveled section lines. Grandparents brought jars of fresh, hand-separated thick cream and wild raspberry jam. An idyllic life of long summers, cold winters, freedom to wander, and build tree houses and forts. 

I left home in 1968 after graduating from high school with a new suit and a suitcase, graduation gifts from my parents. I tried college but left after a couple of years and wandered around the country with no real objectives in mind. I finally landed a scholarship to study drama at the Banff School of Arts in 1972, and from that experience, immigrated to Canada in April of 1974, which culminated in a very successful career in the burgeoning film business in Vancouver.

Wherever I’ve lived, I gravitated to Art communities, which is probably one of the reasons I decided to retire to Salt Spring Island.

This collection is the accumulation of 25 years of playing with string and needles.  It has been creative, challenging, time-consuming, lots of fun… and very rewarding.

Impressions 10

mpressions 10
Salt Spring Island Printmakers
Nov 7-26, 2025
Opening Reception: Nov 7, 5 to 7pm

Salt Spring Island Printmakers:

Salt Spring Island Printmakers began printmaking as a small group of Painters Guild members in 2013. While learning and creating over a few years, we gained a few more interested members, created many interesting prints, and thought: “What do we do with all of the prints we have made?”  In 2016 we decided to have our First Impressions show at Salt Spring Island Public Library. It was a great success!

From humble beginnings we have grown to become a society with over 50 members and a fully equipped, professional printmaking studio in the SIMS building in Ganges, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia.

Continuing the tradition and being proud to have reached our tenth year of Impressions shows, what better way to celebrate than to have a theme centred on the number 10.

We invite you to come see our members’ prints showcasing the variety of printmaking techniques and ideas that make up our printmaking world.

The Sky's the Limit

The Sky’s the Limit
Cheryl Painter
Oct 17 - November 5
Opening Reception: Friday Oct 17, 5-7pm


Cheryl Painter was born and raised in the beautiful Cowichan Valley. From an early age and perhaps due to artistic genes, a career as an artist always seemed to be in the cards for her. Post secondary schooling included an introduction to Fine Arts at the University of Victoria, followed by a year at the Victoria College of Art, then at the Capilano University, with a diploma in Graphic design.

After a successful career, Cheryl left the graphic design industry to raise a family, while also resuming her career as a painter. In 2013 she and her family heeded the call to return to the Cowichan Valley. Amidst the area’s pristine beauty, she is constantly inspired by her surroundings.

Cheryl Painter, on The Sky’s the Limit:

This show is a collection of landscapes based on real places, but exploring a sense of calm and solace. As we deal with the zany politics and turbulence of our times, a retreat to peaceful joy in these paintings can feed the soul.

The title of the show implies that anything is possible, if we can take the glimmer of quiet moments to carry us on.

Salon des Refusés

Le Salon des Refusés 2025
Sept 26 - Oct 15
Opening Reception: Friday Sept 26, 5-7pm

In 1863, artwork rejected by jury of the French Academy of Fine Arts in Paris was showcased in the first Salon des Refusés. This groundbreaking event introduced the public to the emerging avant-garde in painting, and created a new line of thinking about what deserved to be seen, and not seen, in the public sphere. Notable works by Eduard Manet, James Whistler, and Gustave Courbet were included in the exhibition. “Salon des Refusés” is now used to denote any art exhibition devoted to the display of works rejected by a juried art show. Although much has changed in the art world since the 19th century, the norms according to which artists are selected for exhibits are still largely defined by curators and juries.

In celebration of local artists, and in the grand tradition established by the 1863 Salon rejecting the juried process, Salt Spring Gallery of Fine Art, in collaboration with SSNAP, is proud to present works by Southern Gulf Island artists whose works were not included in the finalist groups of SSNAP in a completely un-juried show.

Holding Infinity

Holding Infinity
Amy Melious
Sept 5 - Sept 24
Opening Reception: Friday Sept 5, 5-7pm

Salt Spring Gallery is pleased to present a new series of photographic artworks by member artist Amy Melious. In Holding Infinity, Melious seeks to illustrate the exquisitely spacious invitation of an instant, with the understanding that while experience can be held and shared, it can never be kept. 

Each image is a world, encouraging the viewer to draw near and discover more than what first meets the eye.  They pay homage to their pasts, yet they are not souvenirs. Each is a living echo rippling through time, singing of both personal and common experience.

The individual images, often understated, work together like musical notes to shed rules of time and meaning. A sense of the infinite coexists in them with the whispered reminder that a split second has the capacity to hold multiple and opposing aspects of the human experience at once.

In a return to her early love of monochrome and alternative processes, Melious calls upon only light in conversation with shadow to reveal form, story and emotion, resulting in a captivating collection.

Blush

Blush
Nathalie St-Amant
August 15 - Sept 3
Opening Reception: Friday August 15, 5-7pm

Nathalie St-Amant:

Have you ever blushed when feeling a deepening of love with a dear friend or lover?

“ Blush” explores the very edge where time stands still. Something happens when returning to paint a landscape or subject i have sat with and painted many times: a gesture in the foliage, creatures and shapes peek from their hiding places, a bird call echoes in the chamber of the heart, a colour or shape becomes intimate and shares a secret. One might catch me painting with a impish smile.

In June, I went on a soul’s pilgrimage back to a cabin in Clayoquot where what I speak of above became undiluted. In my 20’s and a few retreats between then and now, I have returned there to find my heart. I usually lived alone at Wolf Beach but this time, and for the first time, me and Michael Henry Wright travelled, lived and painted there together for 10 days.

On this beach, starting in the 70’s, Mike built 3 cabins and the 50 foot sail boat “Amelia”. 2 of the abodes are immortalized in my paintings and will be at the show.

At the edge of time, there is no space for lapsing: Mike and I painted like mad colour scientists and passionate fools blushing like two kids being caught merging with the land of Eden.

A few of the paintings in Blush were painted during this last trip. One can witness soft pinkish tones.The show will also be adorned with poems and a booklet telling the story of these timeless 10 days.

Stay tuned for more information about the artist talk in the next news letter.