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Sheila Norgate
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| Click here for 3 Squared Exhibition Photos |
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| Click here for Sheila’s 2007 Magazin Art article English version |
| Click here for Sheila’s 2007 Magazin Art article French version |
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Please click on the images below for larger photos.
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 | | D HEART G | SHN172
acrylic, canvas
30 x 30 in. | | 08-27 | | $ 3500 CDN |
| | | |  | | HOUNDINI | SHN168
acrylic, canvas
30 x 40 in. | | 09/09 | | $ 4400 CDN |
|  | | BEWILDERED | SHN166
mixed media, canvas
24 x 36 in. | | | $ 3500 CDN |
| | | Please email the gallery to be notified when new work by Sheila Norgate arrives.
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Sheila Norgate
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Sheila Norgate was born in 1950 in the heart of downtown Toronto in the back seat of her uncle's late model Buick. Like most girls of her vintage, she was herded towards all things domestic, and save for an incident in grade eleven when she convinced
authorities to allow her to drop home economics in favour of commercial design, she displayed no particular aptitude towards the arts. After high school Norgate drifted with the rest of her grad class flotsam into University where she learned how to
smoke a pipe and protest social injustice. Two years later and still not actually qualified to do anything, she assumed an entry level position with a major bank and before you could say "accidental and bland career" one such thing yawned open before
her. She soon crossed the country by train and settled on the West Coast.
By 1983 the unlived life was nipping at her heels like a badly behaved poodle and Norgate was forced to take a leave from banking to recover from major abdominal surgery.
While recuperating she bought herself a set of cheap watercolors and embarked on a course of serious dabbling. In those small hard tablets of pigment, she began to locate a voice, her voice. She enrolled in a local art school but dropped out after only
a brief stint, convinced that she needed to find her own way. Since then she has done just that.
Artist Statement
"I had no intention of becoming an artist. There was no childhood dream, no revelationary moment, no intuitive flash, and
no channeling of Emily Carr. It was more that the specter of art-making appeared before me as an inflatable raft to a drowning woman and I hauled myself onto it as a way to save my life. I needed to see myself and know myself. Not surprisingly, I am
virtually self-taught.
I work primarily in acrylic paint on canvas. I love this medium. I love how it forgives and forgets, how it lets me put it wherever I want, how it dries fast when I am impatient to move on. I work fairly energetically,
not wanting to prune back any impulse that arises. I spend a lot of time getting out of my own way. This is not as easy as you’d think.
The text that always appears in my work is vitally important to me. Painting without text would be like
Ginger Rogers dancing without Fred Astaire. It would be show and tell without the tell. They just go together. I can’t seem to help myself. Maybe there’s a 12 step group for that.
Over the years there have been what you would call recurring
motifs appearing in my work. Hearts and birds have pretty much been there all along, but the dogs are a more recent addition. I’d love to be able to attribute this to some more exotic phenomena, but truth be told, it is a simple case of art imitating
life. My partner and I adopted a small maltese-poodle cross in 2001 and life has never been the same. An even more recent interest is horses. So far only one has ventured into a painting of mine, but I feel them standing around the edges of my peripheral
vision. Snorting and waiting.
I would describe the practice of making art as requiring a mix of rapt dedication and raw conviction. It is one of the purest acts of faith I know about. World events of recent years have made it difficult at times
for me to sustain such self-directed and singular focus and yet in my heart I believe that it is through this re-visiting of ourselves over and over again in the creative process, that we make a small stitch in the weave of our shared humanity. I try to
remember that birds begin their song each day in darkness, gently spreading a tapestry of faith across the land.
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Sheila Norgate
Awards
Best Books of 1997, Quill and Quire, February 1998
Shortlisted for VanCity Book Prize("Storm Clouds Over Party Shoes"), Vancouver
Calona Wines Artist Series Label Collection, Vancouver, BC
Collections
Alberta Futurewest, Calgary Alberta
J.J. Barnicke, Calgary Alberta
McLeod & Company, Calgary Alberta
TWC Corporation, Calgary Alberta
Utilicorp, Calgary Alberta
Westin Hotels, Whistler BC
A Lovin’ Spoonful, Vancouver BC
Arbutus Society for Children, Victoria, BC
BC Women’s Hospital, Vancouver, BC
Battered Women’s Support Services, Vancouver BC
Marquis Wine Cellars, Vancouver, BC
Pacific Coast Savings Credit Union, Victoria, BC
Women’s Monument Project, Vancouver, BC
Fairmont Hotels, Toronto Ontario
Genesis Oil and Gas, Calgary Alberta
Exhibitions
Wallace Gallery, Calgary, AB
Artworks, Vancouver, BC
Atelier Gallery, Vancouver, BC
Martin Bachelor Gallery, Victoria, BC
Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, BC
Barton Leier Gallery, Victoria, BC
Community Arts Council Gallery, Vancouver, BC
The Doctor Viagri Gallery, Vancouver, BC
Bridge Street Gallery, Vancouver, BC
Nunavut Gallery, Vancouver, BC
"Work in Progress", Window Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC
"Island Girls" Canada House Gallery, Banff, AB
Bugera/Kmet Gallery, Edmonton, AB
Ingram Gallery, Toronto, ON
Atelier Gallery, Vancouver, BC
Fran Willis Gallery, Victoria, BC
"After Her Own Heart," Diana Paul Gallery, Calgary, AB
"House of Mirrors," Round House Community Centre, Vancouver, BC
"Selfish Slaves of Zines and Animation," A Space, Toronto, ON
Scott Gallery, Edmonton, AB
Horizon/Laverty Gallery, Vancouver, BC
4th International Conference of the Visual Arts Council Gallery, Vancouver, BC
"50 Years: 50 Objects," Community Arts Council, Vancouver, BC
Barton Leier Gallery, Victoria, BC
Barton Leier Gallery, Victoria, BC
Agnes Bugera Gallery, Edmonton Alberta
Ingram Gallery, Toronto Ontario
Atelier Gallery, Vancouver BC
Art Gallery of Victoria (Art Rental), Victoria BC
Artworks, Gabriola Island BC
Agnes Bulgera Gallery, Edmonton, AB
Ingram Gallery, Toronto, ON
Atelier Gallery, Vancouver, BC
Wallace Gallery, Calgary, AB
G"Simply Trees", Canada House Gallery, Banff, AB
3 Squared, Canada House Gallery, Banff, AB
Publications
'Portrait of an artist', Mo magazine, Nanaimo BC
'The Art of Living', Nanaimo News Bulletin, Nanaimo BC
'Painting from the Inside Out', Nanaimo Daily News, Nanaimo BC
'Visual Literacy', Venue Magazine, Vancouver Island
Norgate, Sheila. "Storm Clouds Over Party Shoes: Etiquette Problems for the Ill-Bred Woman," Press Gang
'Sheila Norgate: each with a story', Preview Magazine, Vancouver
'The Studio of Sheila Norgate', Gabriola Sounder
'Her Heart Held a Party', Kinesis
'Nice Girls Might want to skip this Rule Book', Edmonton Free Press
'Tweaking Your Funny Bone', Xtra West
'New and Noted', Globe and Mail
'Storm Clouds Over Party Shoes', Kathleen Hickey, Georgia Straight
'Etiquette Nasty', The Vancouver Sun
'The Lady is a Tramp', Quill & Quire
'Nostalgia Under Relentless Gaze', Paula Gustofson, XTra West
'Divergent Looks at Discrimination and Oppression', Robin Laurence, Vancouver Sun
"Wit and Wisdom at Forefront of Exhibitions", Paula Gustofson, Xtra West
"Show Explores Women's Issues Through Art", Douglas College News
'Women Speak Thru Art', Royal City Record/Now
"Coast Defies Purists" Vancouver Xtra West
"Robert Amos on Art" Victoria Times Colonist
"Art Show Rocks Boat" Kinesis
"Robert Amos on Art" Victoria Times Colonist
"Wearable Art" Victoria Times Colomist
"Just for Laughs" Victoria Boulevard Magazine
"Psychic Frostbite Thaws into Splendor' Victoria Times Colonist
"Sheila Norgate...Art from the Heart" Focus on Women, Victoria
'Sheila Norgate Recent Work" La Rosa, Victoria
'Sheila Norgate', Gallerie Women's Art, Vancouver
'Backroom Gallery Moves Uptown", Business Report, Victoria
"Gallery Opens Fittingly with Upbeat Hearts and Flowers" Victoria Times Colonist
Galleries West
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All images copyrighted by the artists.
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