Virginia McCoy has been painting for more than 30 years. She works with gouache and transparent watercolours.
Born and raised in Northern Ontario, Virginia`s father was born on the Fort William Reserve. His father was of mixed Ojibwe parents and his mother Acadian. Virginia`s mother is a war bride from England and all of her family’s stories speak of the rich experience of mixed cultures and the raw newness of the North American frontier.
Like many artists, Virginia was attracted to Cape Breton Island by the landscape and the light and the people. Here she was able to make a full-time commitment to her studies of people and place in the form of visual art. She also became active in promoting the work of and organizational support for professional artists in Inverness County.
Virginia has set her own course of study and has also been deeply involved in the community of art workers and the learning they provide one another. Her studio is in Inverness and is open to the public during the summer ‘visitor’ months.
Virginia McCoy’s colourful illustrative work has been presented in several group and solo exhibits on Cape Breton Island and the Nova Scotia mainland. Most recent solo exhibits are ‘Becoming White’ at the Cape Breton University Gallery, 2004, a study of the drift from native to white cultural orientation in and ‘Full Circle’ at the Inverness County Centre for the Arts, 2006 a survey of her work in gouache from the past 20 years as collected in and around her home in Inverness Nova Scotia. Her work is also included in many group shows.
Raised in Northern Ontario of mixed Ojibwe, French and English heritage, I am continually inspired by the northern landscape as frontier. In this regard, my paintings are built around the characters, places, artifacts and experiences of those living in and on the boreal forests of North America.
These paintings begin with line. They develop with lines relating to one another and creating the illusion of figures. The figure is essential to continuing the design and the relationship of figures completes the image. Relationship, story, feelings these are what my paintings are intended to impart.
My childhood environment still informs this work. Most familiar to me is the ‘bush’ around small northern towns like Beardmore, Longlac, and Nipigon. The forms and characters of this very Canadian setting be they wild life, plant life or human beings and their artifacts are the elements of every painting. This makes me, as my father would say, ‘a bush Indian.’
This bush Indian is totally engrossed in expressing the nature of the human condition and the spirits that support and challenge our need to lead a good life. The place, now Cape Breton Island, still nourishes this work with a power that implies a very big spirit is in charge.
