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Spirit Mother art show on Gabriola examines ‘sacredness of femaleness’

Liliana Kleiner presents ‘Female Nature: Spirit Mother,’ her first local exhibition in 16 years
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Gabriola artist Liliana Kleiner presents Female Nature: Spirit Mother at Hive Emporium from April 18 to May 5. (Photo submitted)

Gabriola Island-based artist Liliana Kleiner often travels the world showcasing her art, but this month she’s exhibiting her work locally for the first time since 2003.

“I was just involved in other places,” she said of her local absence. “Wherever I am at the moment, that’s where I am showing.”

For the past 16 years Kleiner’s work has been shown around Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland and as far as Central and South America, Europe and Israel. From April 18 to May 5, Kleiner, who is also a clinical psychologist specializing in Jungian dream analysis, presents Female Nature: Spirit Mother at Hive Emporium.

The show features work spanning the last 25 years, including paintings, prints, woodcuts, handmade organic papers and films. Kleiner’s dreamy, abstract folk art draws on her lifelong interest in mythology and “the sacredness of Mother Earth and the sacredness of femaleness.”

On April 27 she launches her newest book, Female Nature: Sacred Matter, at Gabriola Public Library, with a reading at Nanaimo Harbourfront Library the next day.

“I think we are getting way out of balance and into a dead end with the relationships between the masculine and feminine energies, between thinking and science and feeling and Mother Earth,” she said. “So those themes have been of interest to me through mythology, through stories, through art and through dream work.”

Kleiner said she hopes the exhibition of her body of work can open people’s hearts and minds.

“As I see it, the intention of good art is to open people’s imaginations and open their heart, their depth of feeling, try to dream, bring more consciousness, more light, into this world,” she said.

WHAT’S ON … Opening reception for Female Nature: Spirit Mother at Hive Emporium on April 18 at 6:30 p.m. Show runs to May 5. Artist talk on April 21 at 1 p.m. Book launch at Nanaimo Harbourfront Library on April 28 at 2 p.m.



arts@nanaimobulletin.com

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