Karna Bonwick

REVIEWS

Times Colonist, August 17, 1996

VISUAL ARTS: Two women with clear visions
Robert Amos

Two women paint their visions, images centering on the figure.
Karna Bonwick paints the darker ones, oil paintings in which the figures seem to avoid the viewer. Her people seem to linger, pondering in darkness unresolved. In conversation, Bonwick told me that any interpretation was my own and that she was not represented. "No self portraits in this one," she declared. I wonder.

Borrowing a strategy from Glenn Howarth, she conjures up groups of naked figures and sets them gamboling about on indeterminate beaches. Just when the subject threatens to be completely depicted, the artist slips them into an elision. Faces inhabit shadows, blurred shapes slide away or are simply missing.

Unlike many painters, Bonwick gives evidence of being able to depict any part of the body-faces, hands, even feet. But mostly she concentrates on the torso, convex little muscles rippling about, blended highlights set against a dark ground. References to the gristle-and-sinew figurations of Francis Bacon, Alberto Giacometti and Will Julsing come to mind. Perhaps this heroic young painter has been studying them.

She has the means to say something, but just what the message is going to be remains to be seen.

Across the room Jaleen Grove has the opposite problem. Her work is abounding in good ideas. But her technique, while certainly adequate (see Nude on a Kilim Carpet) has to go flat out to keep up with what she is trying to represent.

One of my favorite pictures is titled Knowledge. We see a red apple hanging before us in the foreground of a canvas which is painted all over with branches. Through the branches we spy Eve climbing toward us. It is clear that in this picture Eve has to work hard to acquire knowledge. It's a good idea for a painting, but a devilishly difficult subject. Can Grove paint so well that we forget the craft and receive the idea? She's trying hard.

Another, titled Bride of the Deep, shows a woman in a bride's dress dropped into the dark sea. As she sinks, the dress and bubbles sweep up in a shape which is perfectly labial. Goat-Horned Woman stands with antlers on the verge of an existential meadow.

Victoria News (Wednesday, August 11, 1993)

AROUND VICTORIA: Banana Belt dishes up the avant garde
By Sherry McNeil

It's more than a restaurant that dishes up a healthy spread of cultural foods-it's a James Bay favorite that has stirred the pot on more than one occasion with a monthly display of art from new and upcoming local artists.

Since opening four years ago, James Bay's Banana Belt Café, at Michigan and Menzies streets, has been somewhat of a buried treasure.

It is the hip hang out for local residents, a favorite haunt for artists, and a place where bureaucrats and cabinet ministers "do lunch."

In fact, most of the time, chef Michael McCreight says he has the orders on the grill before the regulars take their seat. One of the café's attractions-aside from the health-conscious food, the welcoming atmosphere and friendly staff-is the original art on display, which changes each month.

The tradition began with a few artists asked owner Christine Cosack, shortly after the café opened, to display their art. Cosack has had them lining up since.

"As far as I know she's never turned any away," says McCreight, speaking for Cosack who was vacationing in Kelowna.

Occasionally, however, there will be a month when no artist is booked. Then Cosack relies on the talents of her employees, several of whom are artists. Karna Bonwick, a 26-year-old artist and Banana Belt waitress, has been asked several times to show her art. Two weeks ago, she gave in.

And to pleasure and shock of local patrons, her large, graphic and vibrant oil paintings hang boldly on the walls of the cafe this month. Some are nudes — all are figurative — focusing on people, their bodies and expressions.

Some people are made uneasy by her work, some are even offended — a reaction Bonwick says she expects. "If I didn't get some of that kind of reaction, I'd think something was wrong." But at the same time, it's that kind of reaction that has kept her from showing earlier. "I didn't feel I had the confidence in my art," she says. Her work is very personal, she says, and as a budding artist, she is still learning not to internalize every criticism.

McCreight says Bonwick's display represents "the most daring we've been". "We've had varied reactions to this show. Some people really like it, others think it's not suitable," he says, choosing his words carefully.

But for every person who is unnerved-and even for the couple who walked out after seeing the art-there are those who are very impressed.

Interrupting Bonwick is an older gentleman compelled to tell the artist how beautiful her paintings are, gushing about the expressions and vibrancy. Already, two of the paintings have been sold.

The rich color Bonwick uses is a relatively new dimension to her paintings. The recent Victoria College of Art graduate says she did not paint-or see-in color until she was "sort of forced into it" by friends who were "fed up" with her monochrome paintings. Now, color is one of the most striking aspects of her work.

And The Banana Belt Café is neither the first, nor the last place Bonwick will show her paintings as she aspires to be a full-time and self-supporting artist. "I'll never give up painting" - whether waiting tables or collecting critic's reviews. And as for The Banana Belt Café, a few unnerved patrons won't likely have Cosack censor the work she displays. In response to whether or not a few patrons have lost their appetite over the exhibit, Cosack coolly replies, "that's what art is all about isn't it?"

For most, the quiet James Bay café serves up an appetizing and unique menu of food for consumption and thought.