Falling for the Sky, oil on canvas

Sheri Bakes is a painter based in Vancouver, BC. Her paintings have a soft look that’s built up using multitudes of tiny brush marks, for a look of contemporary pointillism. Sheri often takes trees, flowers and grass as her subject matter, though many times the ethereal nature of her paintings causes them to exist as abstractions.

Messengers of the Heart, oil on canvas

In many of Sheri’s artworks, the small brush marks that she layers over colorful backgrounds have the appearance of pollen or dust floating over the scene. This technique is a really innovative way of creating a sense of movement in the works, and makes each of the paintings look like a photograph taken during a fast wind, where everything is leaning to one side or blurred and obscured by particles.

Sheri’s 2016 paintings use a notably darker colour palette than many of her earlier works, and I find it works really well, particularly in the way she contrasts the light and sometimes pure white marks in the foreground. Each image has a fantastic kind of sparkle to it, covered over with bits of snow or perhaps cherry blossom petals. 

Delighted, oil on canvas