Rise Together for Ukraine: Artists
Take a look at the artists involved.
Rise Together for Ukraine: Featured Artists Statements
Chin Yuen
Chin has generously donated two paintings to be auctioned at the Rise Together for Ukraine Art Exhibit and Silent Auction.
Artist Statement
I find joy in creating paintings that nurture my playful imagination and celebrate beauty. My paintings are windows to inventive abstract landscapes and fantastical dimensions, where viewers and I can feel inspired and uplifted. In the last three years of pandemic, political upheavals, and global and personal losses, I found great solace and refuge through painting. My aim is always to move forward and towards positivity.
The horrific war in Ukraine causes catastrophic and long-lasting damages. My heart goes out to the people in Ukraine, who have lost their homes and loved ones. In the narratives of tyrants, heroes, political sanctions, and military parity, I truly hope that peace and global harmony are the resounding goals and outcome.
War is an expensive terror. How can we help from afar? I am grateful to have the opportunity to support Ukraine through this fundraiser. I hope that my paintings will lift someone’s spirit up. Through their sales, we can collectively support Ukraine. The path forward is through hope and continuous effort. Let’s do it together.
“Abstract Diary December 1-05”
"Lively, engaging and well-structured despite their spontaneity"
Helen A. Harrison, The New York Times, March 21, 2004
Market Value: $1,500 CAD
Shannon Holms
Shannon Holms has donated a water colour portrait of Ukraines Primeminister, Zelensky.
Artist Statement and Background
Capturing the light is everything! It is my inspiration.
Light can transform figure or a landscape in just a matter of seconds. I strive to convey the special aspects of my paintings by capturing its fleeting magic.
I studied Fine Arts at the University of Victoria; Graphic Design and Broadcast Journalism at Camosun College; attended Simon Fraser University and obtained a Bachelor in Applied Sciences with a majorin Communications as well as post graduate studies at the University of Los Angeles in International Marketing.
In addition to painting, I have won awards for my work in communications and engagement work: The Silver and Bronze Quill Awards from the International Association of Business Communicators and the Canadian Award for engagement in 2016 from the International Association of Public Participation.
I worked for the British Columbia provincial government for 30 years as a senior level executive. Recently retired, I am now a full time visual artist and storyteller. My paintings are held in private collections in Canada, the United States and Japan.
Serving my community by bringing focus to important social causes is very important to me.
Recently, I exhibited 20 portraits and 20 stories of British Columbia Healthcare workers at the Gage Gallery. This show engaged more than 1 million people over a six week period to showcase the sacrifices our local healthcare workers were making to our friends, families and community during the first wave of COVID 19. Many visitors who visited the show were openly weeping after reading the stories and seeing the portraits – demonstrating the power of art.
For this art exhibition, I plan on painting a portrait of Ukraine President Zelensky – a hero who is standing steadfast for his people against the invading forces. His leadership during the crisis
has won him widespread international admiration, and he has been described as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.
Diego Narvaez
Diego Narvaez has generously donated an incredible piece of artwork to the Rise Together for Ukraine Art Exhibit and Silent Auction.
Artist Statement
I work from the direct encounter with the environment to paint natural and urban landscapes. From
Antarctica to Mexico City, Iceland to the West Coast of North America, I am interested in
experiencing places that are in continuous transformation. I am particularly interested in the
contrast of the natural and the urban surroundings and how, through painting, the everyday can
interweave with the sublime. I believe landscape painting is a radical tool nowadays because it calls
for us to look carefully at the places where we cohabit and commonly take for granted, but it can
also open questions on our relationship with faraway and pristine places. I paint this kind of
landscapes to be able to construct and erase, detail or just insinuate what a place could be for any
of us, like a memory, like the way our perception constructs what we call reality. In this sense, each
of my paintings is not fully done, it needs the observer in order to be “completed”; it exists only
when seen. Through my paintings, I want to question the way we perceive and therefore interact
with our surroundings. I have learned through my artistic practice that looking for the right
questions is of much more value than constructing a fixed idea or answer. Accordingly, I create
landscapes that work like open metaphors, rather than images with a unique meaning.
