Chilliwack artist’s work selected for esteemed juried international show

A Chilliwack artist’s watercolour painting has been selected as one of 63 pieces in an international juried art exhibition.

Breen Bergstrome, with her painting titled ‘The Sentry’, is amongst the artists accepted into Open Water 2020, the 95th annual open juried exhibition of select watercolour media put on by the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour.

The show was unveiled on Nov. 1 and the 63 pieces in it have been selected from 350 international entries worldwide including Canada, China, USA, Australia, India, Malaysia, Switzerland, Spain and Bangladesh.

Bergstrome’s lifelike painting of a mellow black-and-white cat perched atop a brick wall is one of them.

“I use a combination of washes and dry-brush high realism to create my fine art paintings,” she said.

Bergstrome is a long time resident of Chilliwack with a 40-year career in the arts, and some of her public artwork work is still intact and on display after 25 years. She has four large, outdoor murals throughout the Fraser Valley: one on the Chilliwack MCC Thrift Shop building on Kipp Avenue, two in Agassiz and one in Langley.

She also completed all four walls inside the old Chilliwack Coliseum with hockey action images on three walls and a huge outdoor skating rink on the last.

Other subject matter of hers has included Indigenous themes, nature studies, animals and landscapes of the Great Canadian Northwest.

Open Water is virtual this year due to the pandemic and can view at cspwc.ca/open-water-juried-exhibition-2020.

Bergstrome has been an elected member of the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour since 2006 and an active member of The Federation of Canadian Artists since 2002.

About the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour

The Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour was founded in 1925 from the commitment to watercolour by 12 influential artists including Fred Brigden and Group of Seven members Franklin Carmichael and A.J. Casson. For the last 95 years the group has had a mandate to encourage and nurture watercolour excellence. As such, it is the only society outside the British Isles represented in the Royal Collection of her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle.

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