About
Gabriela Hirt is an expressionist mixed media artist who tells stories of connection and separation through abstract, high contrast human figures.
Dark drama and subliminal tension often reverberate in Gabriela’s paintings. Raised in post-war Germany in the wake of the Holocaust, her work is informed by family trauma as well as by the collective guilt she grew up with. Juxtaposing themes of segregation and exclusion with expressions of belonging and joy is the artist’s attempt to communicate the paradoxes she perceives in herself and in society.
Gabriela uses strong colour, simplified forms and bold energetic marks to articulate inner emotional states as well as to invite questions of social justice. She likes to work large.
Rooted in her original career as a writer, Gabriela depicts whole narratives in which her stylized people interact. Faces are deliberately treated carelessly. The focus is on the language of the body which the artist deems not only more subtle, but also more genuine, particularly when it comes to social interactions.
Gabriela’s desire to push the boundaries of awareness — her own and that of viewers — sparks a process of radical experimentation. Works start with stream of consciousness writing followed by several layers of paint applied in large gestural movement to access somatic wisdom. Out of the chaos top layers are carefully composed, reflecting her fascination with the intersection between analytical inquiry and the intuitive.
EXHIBITIONS
2022
Inside Out, Art@ Bentall Gallery, Bentall Centre, Vancouver
2021
Refuge, Group Exhibition, Gage Gallery, Victoria
Sooke Fine Arts Show, Sooke, BC
Summer Small Works, Massey Sales Gallery, Art Gallery, Victoria
Memorial. Monument. Movement. Artagainstracism.org, NJ
Somewhere in Time, Federation of Canadian Artists, Victoria
The Indelible Mark, solo show, Gage Gallery, Victoria
Abstracted, Federationgallery, Vancouver
Dreamscape, Gage Gallery, Victoria
2020
Winter Small Works, Massey Sales Gallery, Art Gallery, Victoria
Crisis, Federationgallery, Vancouver
Looking in-Looking Out, Federation of Canadian Artists, Victoria
8 min & 46 sec, window-installation, Gage Gallery, Victoria
Challenge Crisis with Creativity, Gage Gallery, Victoria
Out of the Silence, Gage Gallery, Victoria
Summer Small Works online, Art Gallery, Victoria
Inside Out, 3-artists exhibition, Gage Gallery, Victoria
Summer Show & Sale, Victoria Arts Council, Victoria
Social Distancing online, Federation of Canadian Artists, Vancouver
CLWAC 123rd Exhibition of Women's Art, The National Arts Club, NY City
Abstracted, Federationgallery, Vancouver
2019
Solstice Dreams - The Poetry of Winter, Gage Gallery, Victoria
Winter Small Works, Massey Sales Gallery, Art Gallery, Victoria
All Planet Earth Art Exhibition, Contemporary Art Gallery, Online
The Oak Bay Studio Tour, Victoria
Sidney Fine Arts Show, Sidney, BC
Sooke Fine Arts Show, Sooke, BC
TD Gallery Paint-In, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria
2018
Sidney Fine Arts Show, Sidney, BC
COMMUNITY ART PROJECTS/ORGANIZER
2022 - The Postcard Climate Project & Show, international participation, show in Victoria
2020 - Challenge Crisis with Creativity, project & show, Victoria
