{"id":8269,"date":"2014-10-10T00:09:47","date_gmt":"2014-10-10T07:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=8269"},"modified":"2014-10-09T19:27:34","modified_gmt":"2014-10-10T02:27:34","slug":"joyce-oziers-explosive-colorful-expression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2014\/10\/10\/joyce-oziers-explosive-colorful-expression\/","title":{"rendered":"Joyce Ozier\u2019s explosive colorful expression"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joyce Ozier\u2019s exhibit, Making Panels panels panels panels, is at Zack Gallery until Nov. 2. (photo by Olga Livshin)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Splashes of colors hit you as you walk into the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery\u2019s latest show, Marked Panels panels panels panels, by Joyce Ozier. The green panels smile. The dark purple growl, \u201cNotice us!\u201d The blue looks like wings in the sky, soaring in joy.<\/p>\n

Ozier is fascinated by color. In all of her creative pursuits, color has played a prominent role. With an education in art and theatre, she has always been drawn towards the unusual, the colorful and the non-standard. \u201cI was interested in experimental things, in visual theatre,\u201d she told the Jewish Independent<\/em>.<\/p>\n

She arrived with her husband to Vancouver in 1970, and subsequently co-founded Royal Canadian Aerial Theatre, an experimental theatrical enterprise. \u201cWe did outdoor events with audience involvement,\u201d she said. \u201cOur performances didn\u2019t usually have a story, but they often had a message. We employed lots of imagination in our shows. One of our pieces had hundreds of colorful balloons. We created a moving sculpture out of them…. It was about beauty and pollution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The theatre was a step towards her current show, but it took many more years before the full connection would materialize. After a decade of producing shows, Aerial Theatre dissolved, and Ozier was ready for a new direction, although she wasn\u2019t sure what that would be. She tried her hands at theatre administration, was one of the founders of what is now known as the Scotiabank Dance Centre, but her creativity demanded a more visual outlet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the late 1990s, I founded WOW! Windows,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was a display and design company, and we built it into an award-winning firm. We had many retail clients in the Pacific Northwest, but it started by accident. Of course, starting your own business is risky, but I\u2019ve always had courage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her son was a student at the University of British Columbia then. \u201cHe knew I was searching,\u201d Ozier recalled. \u201cOne day, he came home and said, \u2018The Royal Bank at the corner has terrible window displays. Why don\u2019t you offer them to make their windows for free?\u2019 I did. Later, I made photos of the windows, created a brochure and sent it to the other stores in town. I got my first offer the next day: to design windows for Wear Else. Their designer just left, and they liked my brochure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ozier used her creativity to the max with her new company but she had to learn a lot. \u201cYou just take one step after another,\u201d she said. \u201cOne of the lessons I learned was that retail display is not fine art. It\u2019s a sales tool. The artist must make use of what the company is selling. But I used lots of colors in my windows.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2009, she retired from WOW! Windows, but she still had a passion for colors and looked for a new way to find her expression. \u201cI started painting. I never painted before, but I had an art education.\u201d Never having been interested in realistic figurative art, she immersed herself in abstract painting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to paint large canvases, to work big, but there was a problem. To move such paintings, you need a truck. Then I thought: if I do it by several panels, I could fit a panel in my car.\u201d That was how her current show at the Zack Gallery came into being.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always start with four panels,\u201d she explained of her process. \u201cI paint all the panels at once, trying to get them to balance. After awhile, I move the panels, shuffle them around, change arrangements, turn them sideways or upside down, and a new composition emerges. I paint some more. I never know where I [will] end up with each piece. It\u2019s an adventure.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, I have to take one panel out \u2013 three panels work, but four don\u2019t. I always know when the piece is finished. There is energy there I don\u2019t control. It sweeps me along.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anything could be inspiration for a piece, a starting point. One piece, \u201cChefchaouen,\u201d is inspired by a real place, the eponymous village in Morocco. The four panels of the painting form a mosaic of blue and white, of sky and snow.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a story there,\u201d said Ozier. \u201cEverything is blue in that village, the houses, the streets. That village in the mountains was discovered in the 1930s by a group of European Jews escaping Nazism. They thought they found safe haven. They didn\u2019t, but they didn\u2019t know it then. They settled there and painted everything blue. Blue has a special meaning in Judaism, divinity and equilibrium. Later on, they found out that blue stucco also repelled mosquitoes. There are no Jews there now, but the color remains.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of her other paintings have more poetic titles, like a symphony of grey called \u201cCloud Thoughts\u201d or a smaller one-panel painting, \u201cSummer Wind,\u201d a quaint green explosion. \u201cComing up with titles is difficult. I have to think about them a lot,\u201d Ozier said.<\/p>\n

Her first solo exhibition opened at the Zack Gallery on Oct. 2 and continues until Nov. 2. To learn more, visit joyceozier.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Olga Livshin<\/strong> is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joyce Ozier\u2019s exhibit, Making Panels panels panels panels, is at Zack Gallery until Nov. 2. (photo by Olga Livshin) Splashes of colors hit you as you walk into the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery\u2019s latest show, Marked Panels panels panels panels, by Joyce Ozier. The green panels smile. The dark purple growl, \u201cNotice us!\u201d The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8220,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[989],"tags":[2189,40],"class_list":["post-8269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-visual-arts","tag-joyce-ozier","tag-zack-gallery"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}