Valerie Biebuyck: Creationasmagloria

About the Artist

Valerie Biebuyck studied under the prominent South African landscape impressionist artist Erik Laubscher and the illustrativeartist Johann Swart at the Ruth Prowse School of Art in Cape Town. Her paintings and photographic art show the influence of these artists and of her multicultural experiences in South Africa, Canada, the United States of America and England. Her works have been shown at the Ruth Prowse Studios in South Africa, The Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art in Greensboro, NC, USA where she won awards two years running, Hooper Studios in Hampton, NB and in her own Red Barn Studio on Darlings Island, NB. Her studio was featured during two annual King’s County Studio Tours. The prominent Canadian visual artist Kathy Hooper introduced her to the local world of art and artists and has been an inspiration and a dear friend.

Valerie uses an array of media including oils, acrylics, dry acrylic, charcoal, photography and the written word. She is careful to choose the right paper, canvas, metallic panelling or art board on which to create her work and is very particular about finishing her work with the appropriate frame.

Since arriving in Canada she has concentred on the creative use of digital photography, taking her inspiration from prominent impressionist photographer Freeman Patterson and portrait and nature art photographer Jamie Wilson.

Valerie is a visual artist first and foremost. The technologies of camera and Photoshop are merely tools in her hands and are not the prime ingredients of her work.  She says that her method can be best described as painting in the medium of photography. This gives her work a certain edgy quality that is visually pleasing. She takes it as a compliment when her photographic work is mistaken for paintings, as so often happens.

Creating the Creationasmagloria Exhibition

Valerie has become known for her invention of words to describe her art collections and so Creationasmagloria, being derived from The Glory of Creation, is no exception.

When Valerie reads or hears the beautiful poetic words of The Creation according to the Judeo-Christian Bible, her imagination fires up marvellous images that move and have their being in her mind. She had dreamt that one day she would turn these visions into pictures she could share with others. When she signed the contract to exhibit in the Saint John Arts Centre, she recognized that the Frazee Gallery would be the ideal place to reveal her dream to the public eye. Valerie decided that, although the Creation according to Judeo-Christian tradition would continue to be her primary inspiration, the exhibition would not be complete without representations from other cultures. She began her research, selecting those stories that were rich in imagery. She chose seven themes and worked on refining the words into appealing narrative form. Twenty six individual descriptions evolved, each of which would result in a single picture. Then she completed the arduous task of searching through her photographs to match between one and thirty suitable images that she included into each of the twenty six pictures.

The seven themes of the exhibition are:

In the Beginning – Judeo-Christian

The Creation of the Sun and the World and All Things – Egyptian

The Creation of Man and Woman – Mayan, Kitche Maya and Aztec

Yggdrasil, the World Tree – Norse and Icelandic

Pangu, the Creator Deity – Chinese

The First Day of the Sun – Narrative Poetry

The Creative Forces of the Welland Canal – A True Story