5 Days Left To View Sherelle Wilsack’s Exhibition “Feast”
Sherelle Wilsack taps the more obviously figural. She loves vivid hues, a flat, simplified linear style and a frontal pose that make her human figures look like ancient icons, though without the sacred messages. In Mennonite Girl, a big oil on canvas, the sitter poses against a bright acid-green background. This green contrasts with the sombre darkness of her clothing, but is intensified by the scarlet cap. She looks directly at us. Wilsack carefully outlines the almond-shaped eyes, long nose and red lips. But she paints the cheeks as two soft-edged red circles and adds dark smudges to the eyes.
‘Mennonite’ by Sherelle Wilsack
Wilsack’s simplified style is at its best in the way she depicts the hand. It sticks out of the blue of the dress but it’s not attached to an arm or sleeve. Her repertoire also includes animals, fruit and trees, all of them bright and beautiful, including a cheeky lamb, a big red and green profile portrait of a rooster and pair of pears ready to burst out of their frames.
Regina Haggo, art historian, public speaker, curator and former professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, teaches at the Dundas Valley School of Art.
Sherelle Wilsack
What: Feast
Where: James North Studio, 328 James St. N.
When: until June 3
Phone: 905-528-6437
