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Previous exhibit: May 25th to June 21st, 2010


GVSW Invite

Greater Vancouver Weavers and Spinners


Celebrating 75 years of the Geater Vancouver Weavers and Spinners Guild


GVSW Entrance

From May 25-June 20, 2010 The Seymour Art Gallery will be showing Interlacement at 75 by the Greater Vancouver Weavers and Spinners Guild. Eight enterprising women initiated the Greater Vancouver Weavers' and Spinners' Guild in 1935; today they have one hundred and fifty members. The purpose of the Guild has been "to promote, encourage and improve the art and craft of weaving and spinning." To celebrate all they have achieved in the past 75 years and to look forward to the future, the guild is holding a symposium focusing on their core activities of weaving and spinning. The symposium week will end with the celebration party opening their exhibition of "scarves" at the Seymour Art Gallery


Woven Top
Oyster Shell

Previous exhibit: May 4th to May 23rd, 2010


Soula Invite

Soula Groumoutis Sculpture

About the work ...

I work with form to articulate flow and movement; create relationships between positive and negative space; and echo the anthropomorphic quality of the body without directly representing it. My sculptural forms are very unique and original to my journey as I came to sculpting through becoming and working as an art historian first. It came as an overriding impulse to express myself in the medium of stone. The work is very sensual and expresses an interesting softness, given that it is created from stone, as it reconfigures and rearticulates space so it flows and expands.


Wings

The pieces speak about transformation. They touch on movement, connection, communication and relationships and the construction and deconstruction of those spaces. They are very organic as I leave them raw, at times, to express the blood and guts of our existence and the reminder that when we are not connected and follow our heart we are living a sort of death.

Emerging
Bleeding Heart

Although the language I have developed is very unique to my process, I am influenced by the tantric philosophy that looks at the heart as two individual states of consciousness that unite at the point as one: the union of self to the other (the beloved) that parallels the union of self to the universal or divine power while maintaining one's distinctive individuality while in motion and balance. I also adore classical ruins and sculptural fragments as I find a beauty in them that cannot be expressed in wholeness and perfection.

The pieces are often done in groupings - in twos, or threes or nines - because they relate and talk to each other in unconventional ways. There is an exchange that is embedded in each piece that happen in ways that the logical mind cannot grasp but the heart and body feels. Pieces touch and move in and out of the other's space to express various types of relationships - relationships that defy rules and 'normal' sets of conventions. Each piece has its own integrity and relates to the other in its own way but through a language that is shared - the language of form, touch, movement and dance.


Synchronicity

My work is constantly evolving and a new language is forming. The pieces are increasing in size and I have started to open up the dense spaces to emphasize flow and life force. The movement that is created in these new pieces, to me, express possibilities.

Previous Exhibits at the Seymour Art Gallery:


We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the City of North Vancouver and the District of North Vancouver through The Arts Office:


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