Alice Van Blokland’s art was first featured in Barrie, Ontario at the age of eight when a picture of her and her first public work (a finger painting!) was published in the Barrie Examiner. Many of Alice’s siblings also had artistic leanings, one sister going on to be a graphic designer and another an interior designer. Taking art courses throughout her youth, Alice went on to study art at Barrie North Collegiate and then with private tutors from England and China. While she has done some work in water colours, her greatest body of work is in acrylics.
Recently Alice has decided to widen her scope and will be undertaking the challenge of working with oil paints. She greatly enjoys plein air painting, and while several pieces were created in the beautiful areas throughout Victoria, Alice mostly works from her home studio in Oak Bay. Amongst her larger body of abstract paintings are interspersed a few still- lifes and landscapes.
Alice has spent the bulk of her career working in the employment services field and is employed as a director with Beacon Community Services. Prior to Beacon, Alice worked at Camosun College under contract. She has also worked in the financial, hospitality and retail sectors. Alice’s husband Gerry and their son Christopher lived for three years in Japan from 1991-1994 and had many opportunities to view Japanese artisans throughout the prefecture of Yamagata. During her time in Japan Alice worked primarily with oil pastels.
“What I work to capture in my paintings is the vividness of life. The shifting colours and tones of nature are so inspiring to me. While I live in Oak Bay, I travel to Sidney to work and am awestruck at the changes that occur in the sky, clouds, trees and other foliage along the highway throughout the seasons. I am also a fan of the naturally occurring phenomena in our universe such as nebula and neutron stars and hope to do a series of abstracts that capture my impressions. Most of the time when I sit down at my easel I have no idea what is going to unfold. I usually start with the colours I want to use that day and go from there. I’ve always admired the impressionists and the current piece under development on my easel is inspired by those artists.”.
