Karly Ireland is the featured artist at the Jasper Art Gallery until the end of May. Her earliest memories go back to Nova Scotia where her grandmother encouraged her to pick up a pencil and draw, and draw she did.
Her favourite subject was animals, those she had seen and was familiar with and those from exotic countries that she has seen in photos. Karly laughed as she remembers her youthful days, carrying around a pencil and sketchpad every where she went.
As a student, she filled the margins of her notebooks with doodles and images to the amusement of her teachers and fellow students. Her first formal training in the world of visual art was at Truro NSCC. There, she learned digital animation and illustration.
After completing her diploma and receiving a scholarship she moved to Toronto Ontario to attend Max the Mutt Animation School. This provided the skills that formed the foundation of her creativity as an artist and gained her employment in the animation industry.
The summer of 2009 was Karly’s first venture west with the encouragement of an uncle, an interior designer who was featured at the Jasper Park Lodge. There, Karly found significant influence in her artistic journey, working as a gallerist for Mountain Galleries at the Fairmont Jasper. It was then Karly fell in love with traditional art and painting and spent much of her days off hiking and drawing all the amazing animals and landscapes.
Today, Karly is a successful artist who has the ability to create digital and traditional visual art. She is a digital background painter for the popular children’s television show, The Wild Kratts. And previous to that, she has also painted backgrounds for the CBC on the animated feature film Pirate's Passage starring Donald Sutherland. Currently. In new projects, Karly is illustrating a children’s storybook written by local author and travel journalist Ruby Hogg, The Canadian Moose Fairy, which is scheduled to be completed this fall.
As Feature Artist at the Jasper Art Gallery, Karly is working on a new project telling a story through four paintings which feature a well-known set of wildlife against the colours of the famous Hudson’s Bay blanket. The story she tells through these paintings, is of our country's early days, the exploration, the hunting and trapping, trading and the importance of the animals used for the development of Canada.
The two completed pieces feature a caribou and a loon, both iconic symbols of Canada’s wildlife even to today.
Karly’s work will be featured at the Jasper Art Gallery until the end of May. She will be onsite to work on the next two pieces on May 24 and 31. You are invited to drop into the gallery and watch the process as Karly turns the last two blank wooden cradled panels into a visual art series that honours Canada’s past and wildlife.
