“Sea Forms: The Nature of Creation “ solo show by Jill Ehlert, inaugural artist at the brand new “The Chapel Gallery”, Victoria, BC. 2018

I have been really busy over the past year since September 20, 2018, when my show ”SeaForms: The Nature of Creation” was installed at The Chapel Gallery. I was in attendance for all of the Saturday’s and a couple of Monday’s that the gallery was open, I enjoyed meeting people and talking about my work, We had 115 people attend on the opening night and artist talk. As well, over the course of five weeks, we had about 200 people come to the gallery to see my work. We had wonderful talks and I was overwhelmed by the reception to this new body of work.

After my show ended on October 30th, 2018 —Nicky Rendell, the lead curator, at The Chapel Gallery, asked me to join her on the curatorial team. My husband Paul B. Peters also joined the team to act as the installer for gallery shows.

After the gallery opened with my solo show in September 2018, we curated and installed six gallery shows. These were five solo shows by Victoria artists: Sharon A. Stone, Catherine Fraser, Roberta Pyx Sutherland, Marney Ward and Christine Gollner. The Chapel Gallery had a group show with the St. Matthias and Abbeychurch communities, which brought it to a total of six exhibitions for our first year.

Each show ran for four weeks. There was a great turn out for all the art openings and artist talks and all these events were well attended.

It has been a lot of work helping to get this gallery on its feet and going —it has been a great experience. Now that the gallery has been through its first full year and after much thought, I have decided that it is time to get back into my studio full-time. As well I have decided to offer workshops once again in my studio, therefore I will give up my position with the Chapel Gallery. What a wonderful year it was!

Below are the posters for each of the 7 shows that the gallery has produced over the past 12 months.