Mehlis was born in Bolivia. Her family moved to Canada when she was 12. Since then, she regularly travels between the two countries: for study or work. \u201cI\u2019ve lived in Vancouver since 2001, but I still visit Bolivia every year,\u201d she told the Independent. She feels that she belongs to both cultures, the same way she belongs to art.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t choose art as a profession,\u201d she said. \u201cIt chose me. I always liked doing art, but, in Bolivia, art is not considered a serious profession. Not stable enough. In the beginning, I tried to deny it, found various jobs in other fields, but I couldn\u2019t stay away from art. When I was young, I had a romantic view of the artistic life \u2013 you know, an artist in her studio. I know better now, but it is too late for me.\u201d She smiled.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Richards is local. She studied fine art in British Columbia and Alberta, starting in high school. \u201cAfter I graduated from a fine arts program, I worked for years in the film industry here, in Vancouver,\u201d she said. \u201cI was a scenic artist. It was a good job, with a steady income, and I learned a lot, but it wasn\u2019t creative enough for me. I was always working on someone else\u2019s concept. About 10 years ago, I decided to step back from film and pursue my own artistic ideas. I wanted to express myself, my vision.\u201d<\/p>\n Both artists have known each other slightly for a long time, as their studios are in Parker Street Studios and both have participated in the Eastside Culture Crawl for years, but the shared exhibit is due to the efforts of Zack manager and curator Sarah Dobbs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSarah brought us together,\u201d Mehlis explained. \u201cI applied for the show at the JCC, but I didn\u2019t have enough new works to fill the gallery. Sarah visited several other studios in our building to find the second artist.\u201d Richards picked up the story: \u201cSarah approached me with the idea of a two-artist show, and here we are.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For Mehlis, her Latin American roots inform her paintings and sculptures. \u201cMagic Realism is very popular in Latin America,\u201d she said. \u201cIt fascinates me: the idea of mystical and mysterious in everyday life. My grandmother\u2019s stories were full of magic embedded in the ordinary. And we have many street festivals in Bolivia. The performers wear colourful costumes of fantastic beasts, with only their human legs showing.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Similarly, the birds in Mehlis\u2019s paintings all have human legs and bright plumage. They are flying in the same direction, through the luminous light, towards goals only they know. The artist calls this series the Ornithrope Collection. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe idea of migration of humans and animals intrigues me,\u201d she said. \u201cFor fish and birds, there are no borders, they follow a pattern in the world. But humans \u2013 we have borders. Borders complicate things, and still people migrate. My birds are modeled on a swallow, a migratory creature. Swallows fly between North and South America every year, like me. They are my travel companions.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Most of her pieces were inspired by Caroline Shaw\u2019s music, set to the words of psalms, and the titles reflect those inspirational, poetic phrases: \u201cThe sparrow found a house\u2026\u201d or \u201cThey pass through the valley\u2026\u201d or \u201cRiding on the wings\u2026\u201d All the pieces are focused on fantastic, anthropomorphic birds: at rest or in flight. They are the protagonists of Mehlis\u2019s stories.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Richards\u2019 paintings are of scenery, with succinct titles: \u201cCommute,\u201d \u201cFerry Deck,\u201d \u201cTree Fort.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cUrban spaces always interested me,\u201d she said. \u201cWe pass them. We touch them. We change them. I take lots of photos when I walk around, and my photos often serve as a base for my paintings, something I want to explore, a starting point. Light and shadows create a mood, an atmosphere. That\u2019s why there are no people in my paintings. People change the mood, but I don\u2019t know who they are. As it is, the viewers are the participants. They can walk into my paintings and make up their own stories.\u201d<\/p>\n Light suffuses Richards\u2019 cityscapes, be it the pink sunlight on a ferry deck, the lamplight at night on a street corner, or the yellow sunlight peeking through a tangle of boards of an abandoned tree fort. In Richards\u2019 paintings, we are the people driving in the cars or traveling on the ferry through the lights of ocean and sky. We might have built the fort.<\/p>\n \u201cThat tree fort is such an expressive structure,\u201d she said. \u201cI have several paintings of it. It is in that liminal space between a residential area and a forest. There is a mystery there: who built it? What for? It\u2019s human architecture, fragile but enduring.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Like Mehlis, Richards finds mystery. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Another similarity between the artists is that both are cautious about commissions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI have only one client \u2013 a poet,\u201d Mehlis said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI have done some commissions,\u201d Richards said, \u201cbut it wasn\u2019t really for me. It resembled too much my work in film: executing someone else\u2019s ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n Mehlis and Richards represent a generation of creative people finding their way, one step at a time, between the old brick-and-mortar gallery system and the new internet marketing world.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know how to promote myself anymore,\u201d said Mehlis. \u201cIt used to be all galleries, but now it is all online, and I don\u2019t understand those algorithms.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Richards agreed: \u201cThe gallery system is in trouble now, competing with the online sales. But Eastside Culture Crawl is still going strong. Most of us make our yearly income during Culture Crawl. Hundreds of visitors come every year to our studios. It is a huge artistic event, the most democratic art sales in Vancouver. Nobody curates it. People buy what they like.\u2026 I remember in 2021, just after COVID, there were still restrictions in place of how many people could visit at a time. I looked out the window and there was a lineup of people in front of the door to our studios. It stretched out for blocks. They all wanted our art. It was very heartening.\u201d<\/p>\n Into the Light opened Nov. 13 and will be up until Jan. 5. For more information, visit the artists\u2019 websites, pilarmehlis.ca<\/a> and gillianrichardsartist.com<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"image](\"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/dec-05-VA.05.Into-the-Light-PilarMehlis_RidingOnTheWings_fix.jpg\")
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