Two Chilliwack artists are calling their upcoming show an “artistic dialogue” between each other via their still-life paintings and landscapes.
Iryna Kharina and Nino Dobro bring their duo exhibition Brushstrokes of the Soul to the O’Connor Group Art Gallery at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre from June 5 to July 6.
“Painting is silent poetry,” said Dobro, who has lived in Chilliwack for two years.
He was born in Croatia and lived in Germany for five years during the Croatian civil war (1991-1995).
He couldn’t bring any art supplies with him when he left Croatia, so shortly after they arrived in Germany, his sister bought him what he needed and he began painting. He recalled one art show where he sold six pieces in a couple of hours, plus people ordered more work from him.
“I was so happy.”
He moved to Canada in 1996 and lived in Surrey and Langley before moving to Chilliwack in 2022.
Dobro was mostly self taught, but also studied academic art in Europe. He’s inspired by famous artists like Rembrandt, Picasso, and Dali, to name a few.
He started with impressionism paintings and later created realism.
A lot of his work is realistic illusions known as ‘trompe-l’oeil’ which is French for ‘deceive the eye.’
The work is so realistic, people wonder if a three-dimensional object has been glued to the canvas, but it’s all just layers of paint, he said.
Dobro’s paintings often look like the viewer could pick the object right off the page, said fellow artists Kharina.
She also paints realism, but her work is different.
“My style is more academic-realistic but with very big influence of Canadian art traditions.”
Kharina was born in Ukraine and was an established academic European-based artist when she arrived in Canada 15 years ago. She moved to Chilliwack in 2018.
“My art definitely got changed over here. Now I’m the Canadian artist completely – it’s about all the local scenery and still life.”
A lot of her work focuses on what she sees in the moment right here in Chilliwack, such as local flowers and driftwood from the river.
Kharina calls them “nature treasures,” and added that her paintings are contemporary-realistic, not classic-realistic.
People have possibly seen her with her easel at the side of the road as she often does plein-air paintings. In the summertime she’s outside nearly every day painting.
“Chilliwack has just flooded me with ideas. I was overfilled with all the emotions.”
Kharina said her work and Dobro’s work complement each other because the two artists both have the same European academic background where they studied at art schools steeped in hundreds of years of traditions.
“We’ve been raised with lots of different genres – still life, landscapes, portraits – that’s why Nino’s still lifes have a little bit of a connection with my still lifes (even though) they are completely different.”
Brushstrokes of the Soul by Iryna Kharina and Nino Dobro is on display in the Art Gallery at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre from Wednesday, June 5 to Saturday, July 6. The opening reception is set for Saturday, June 8 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
The show is presented by the Chilliwack Visual Artists Association.
