June Higgins is busy.  She has three paintings in the Slide Room Gallery’s show “Fantasy Island”, and her sculpture show “Preserves” opens at the Ministry of Casual Living this Friday.  The show “Fantasy Island” is a group show that features ten artists and many different kinds of media.  “It was very encouraging to be asked to participate in this show,” says Higgins. It is easy to see why her work was chosen by curators John Luna and Wendy Welch.  The show has a dreamy, whimsical feel to it – all inspired by the magical location of Victoria, and Higgins’ paintings fit right in.

The paintings are lush and fanciful.  Each vaguely resembles a landscape, in some corners there appears to be some organic growth of some kind.  These paintings were inspired by stories of fantasy, stories from her childhood in particular. “I really like children’s stories; I have a real affinity towards them.  I like the kind of stories where someone finds themselves in a real unusual situation, with unexpected possibilities – good things can happen, bad things can happen, like The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe or Alice in Wonderland.  I wanted to paint a representation of that…It’s not literal, it’s more intuitive work based on that idea.”

But it is not just painting that Higgins is doing, while working on her diploma program at the Vancouver Island School of Art, Higgins took up three dimensional work.  Recently she has been making assemblages out of domestic and found objects.  Her three dimensional wall pieces were on display at the Vancouver Island School of Art Open House this past December.  Seeing those assemblages and seeing her paintings, the parallels are easy to draw. Both are very organic, resembling nests or maybe party hats?  “I love the physicality of it.  I really enjoy taking objects and putting it them all together, it’s really fun!”

So much fun that Higgins didn’t see herself ever painting again.  “I had found this physical stuff and this is what I love.  Why would I ever paint again?  Well I had to take another painting class and I hadn’t painted for a year and a half, and I had worked with all of this material stuff in between.  So I think it actually informed my painting.  I knew more of what I was doing with paint.  It was pretty exciting.” Thankfully Higgins continues to paint.  And be it painting, or making her amazing assemblages, Higgins is sure to stay busy to the delight of the Victoria visual arts community.

“Preserves” opens at the Ministry of Casual Living this Friday February 26th at seven o’ clock in the evening.

Hailey Finnigan is the author of phART, a Victoria-based arts blog.

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