Artist and IDEA School of Design instructor, Dominique Walker, was featured in an exhibition, Wildhood, at District Foyer Gallery in North Vancouver (July 26 - September 18, 2017). See her landscape paintings below.

Statement about exhibition

There is something magical that happens when you release children into natural environments. You can see wound energy getting absorbed into the earth. They re-root and ground. Boredom evaporates, curiosity and discovery bloom.

Stress, anxiety and depression have not traditionally been thought of as childhood issues. But in our increasingly social media driven, commercialized, high achieving, and over scheduled society, these conditions are becoming increasingly prevalent in elementary schools. Letting children free in natural environments is one of the easiest ways for them to re-balance; the benefits of letting kids free play in nature can not be overstated.

North Shore families are ideally situated to take advantage of their proximity to the natural world. Minutes away from shopping centres are our mountains, streams and beaches. I love exploring the wild areas of the North Shore with my children and their friends. I love watching their forms moving together through the forests; heads bent, bodies moving around each other in dynamic groups splitting and reforming as interest and curiosity guide. Sometimes alone and sometimes in packs they balance naturally with their environment.

Capturing ‘wildhood’ has been a main theme in my recent work. This exhibition, themed around the free-range children of the North Shore, profiles and celebrate the amazing natural resource we have on our doorstep and the balance our kids find in it.

Dominique Walker Artist Bio

Light is my earliest memory and constant curiosity. Capturing the way light defines and shadows connect is my relentless muse. The quiet tread of the shadows knitting together. The way light reveals and plays around the edges of form. Moving through the West Coast wilds I’m constantly inspired. Whether its trying to capture the cool morning light of alpine meadows or the filtered light of the deep rainforest or the last waves of warmth dancing across the Pacific. It is the place I can be still with reflected wonder.

Dominique current teaches in the IDEA School of Design at Capilano University. She is the fourth generation of a family of female landscape painters known as the Everard Group, who’s work can be found in private collections worldwide and the national galleries of South Africa.

For more info on Dominique see: dominiquewalker.com
For more on the exhibit, see: nvartscouncil.ca.