A Church for Barkerville - A Pictorial Essay
Robert Jenkins
Sept 4th - Oct 26th, 2025
IMA Public Gallery (2323 Pooley St)
Open Thursday - Sunday
About the Exhibition
A Church for Barkerville – a Pictorial Essay’ is a three-year project, centered on St. Saviour's Church in Barkerville. Through observation as a visitor, Jenkins translates meaning and messages from the space through the objects left behind. What results is a series of 24 pastels, intended to immerse the viewer in an experience of visiting and decrypting the messages left to us.
About the Artist
“Born Vernon, BC, I attended schools in Vancouver, Trail, and North Vancouver, then UBC and U of Calgary graduating with a doctorate in Cosmic Ray Physics in 1966. Throughout my growing up, I had always drawn and painted, and, although I had chosen to follow my scientific side in my professional career, art remained a strong interest.
While living in the New England area, I became exposed to the New York art scene, my work gradually shifted from the landscape painting I had started with as a student, to large minimalist geometric shaped canvases, and acrylic colour stains. I continued in this vein when I moved back to Ottawa to commence a science career with the Canadian government. A number of exhibitions later, with the pressures of career and a young family, I put my painting on hold - I did not have the time or energy to do it all.
Since retirement, I have begun painting from a very different perspective. I enjoy hiking in the mountains, and started by drawing the things that I saw. The earlier, abstract works reflected an inner sense of order and harmony; my present work is intended to celebrate the 'not so orderly' message of creation and our place in it. I do a lot of my work in pastel, a medium I had not used since childhood. I like it for the drawing as well as painting possibilities, and the sense of material that can be achieved with it. My science continues to inform my art, and together with my artistic impulses, challenges me to explore new initiatives in portraying creation.”
The Island Mountain Arts Public Gallery is supported by the Province of British Columbia.