Sooke artist Bill Skuce will be mounting an exhibition of portriats completed between 2000 and 2011. Gordon Doucette, owner of Serious Coffee in Sooke, is hosting the retrospective.
The 12 oil paintings, will remain on the walls at Serious Coffee throughout February and March.
“Doubtless the most imposing in size (24” X 60”) is Angels in Training,” said Skuce.
Of the many paintings he had seen of angels, over the years, all had been white-skinned. Skuce determined that the four in his painting would exclude neither the red, black, yellow or white race. “In my search for models,” Skuce recalls, “I found good candidates to choose from at the Maxwell International Baha’i School in Shawnigan Lake.”
Skuce who had taught there from 1997-2000, finished his angels the year he retired. Since his models looked a little younger than most Renaissance angels, the artist decided to call them “Angels in Training.”
Skuce (who has a degree in Fine Arts from UVic) had decided to feature four angels on his 2’ by 5’ canvas.
Only one the 11 workson exhibit was shown in the Sooke Fine Arts Show of 2005.