Julie Oakes "Awestruck" new works

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"Blue Topaz Rising"

Julie Oakes, "Blue Topaz Rising," Oil on linen, 60"x24".

Julie Oakes, Awestruck, November 2nd to December 30th, 2012

Opening Friday November 2nd at 8 p.m.

SMASH Gallery of Modern Art welcomes Julie Oakes to the gallery with her show “Awestruck”, November 2nd to December 30th, 2012.

Julie Oakes’ career, spanning over 30 years and 4 continents has been steeped in both compliment and controversy. Through her works from the self explanatory ‘Getting to Know him in the Biblical Sense’ (SMASH Gallery 1992) to ‘The Canadian Gift Proposal’ a series of paintings that addressed 9/11 and the aftermath, (an event she experienced from a mere 10 blocks away), she has been an original gypsy. Her path has crossed continents, crossed disciplines and crossed the line. More than once.

Julie Oakes latest works in Awestruck, opening at SMASH on November 2nd are more of an exploration, rather than an elucidation of her surroundings, a reaction to her current life in BC’s Okanagan. Controversy has been set aside as wonder takes over.

Using familiar flora and fauna, from barnyard to the more exotic as both subject and palette, with Awestruck, Oakes lends her hand to the manipulation of creation itself, placing the artist in the position of not only creator, but Creator in the grand scale.

Jumping disciplines like a New York commuter switches trains, Awestruck blends painting and sculpture into a coherent examination of theology, nature and the human experience, leaving the viewer…awestruck!

SPECIAL EVENTS:

SMASH Gallery of Modern Art presents:

Julie Oakes, reading from her new novel HOOKS, Saturday, November 3rd at 2PM

Published April 2012, Hooks is Julie Oakes newest novel.

About Hooks: Dundurn

When Georgia accepts the assignment to research prostitution in India, she enters blithely, confident of her ability to remain objective in the face of the difficult subject matter. Provided with an Indian guide, Karma, Georgia feels that she is in control of her well-being and safety. But India, being India, soon overwhelms her preconceptions as Karma's first attempt to facilitate her assignment is to arrange for her to witness an encounter between a prostitute and a john.

Told in two voices, Georgia's and Karma's, Hooks grapples with the discrepancies between a Western and an Eastern take on prostitution in a country where tradition, modernity, and necessity cast disturbing slants on the truth.

A morality tale told from vastly different personal circumstances and orientations, Hooks draws in the uninitiated Georgia, as she in turn helps the grieving Karma to realize a route away from his spoiled hopes.

Julie Oakes has a master's degree from New York University in art professions and a master's degree in social and political science from the New School for Social Research in New York City. She is a renowned visual artist and is currently a writer for the art magazine Vie des Arts. Julie lives in the Okanagan Valley.