Visual Art Collections By Cyd Eva
Creating Home/Ukwakha iKhaya Art Show
This exhibition is inspired by my experience leaving home, building a new life in another country and feeling love and connection to nature, land, animals and people in both places. It is about living and loving across the globe and calling two countries home.
As a descendant of European settlers, I was born in so-called Vancouver on the unceded Coast Salish Territories of xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, and I grew up in Coquitlam on kʷikʷəƛ̓əm land. After completing my studies in Visual Arts at Simon Fraser University in 2017, I went to Johannesburg, South Africa to complete a 2-month artist residency at Assemblage Gallery. During my time there, I met my husband, Costa Besta, who is Zulu from Durban eThekwini Kwazulu Natal, South Africa. Over the next 5 years, we lived together and apart in Durban, Vancouver, Cape Town and Coquitlam building our creative partnership. While living together in Cape Town during the pandemic, I started my painting practice again while Costa was creating original music in our shared studio. The inspiration of that time planted the seed for this collection of paintings and beats.
In Zulu, “Ukwakha” means “creating” and “iKhaya” means “home”. Home is not just a place to us, it is the energy and the work one puts into themselves, their relationships with others and the land one lives on. The landscape, animals and nature of South Africa and Canada informed the subject matter for this series, and I combined these natural elements with my colourful graphic pattern illustration style. I collaborated with my long-time friend and fellow artist Brianna Klassen on some of these paintings.
Costa, Brianna and I work together through the creative platform Pattern Nation, our slow fashion brand and artist collective.
The opening night of this exhibition will feature a selection of original beats produced by Costa Besta in South Africa and Canada. A selection of his music is available to listen to on SoundCloud through the QR codes within the exhibition.
Friday, January 20, 2023 to Thursday, March 9, 2023 in the Leonore Peyton Salon at Place Des Arts in Coquitlam BC.
opening night event on Friday January 20th from 7-9pm.
Positive Space Abstract Painting Series
This is a style of painting that Cyd Eva is currently exploring and has made various works in over the last two years. She is interested in fluid expression of patterns and mark making. With the final layer or line work or creating shapes by adding in the negative space.
Positive Space pARTy
Is a night of abstract painting exploring positive and negative space through a unique technique taught by instructor Cyd Eva. Participants will enjoy an evening of painting on canvas in a truly positive space with high vibes South African House Music curated by DJ Costa Besta. We will explore a style of painting that starts as an abstract artwork where one may experiment with different textures, colours, shapes and motifs. We will then transform the paintings by adding a top layer of negative space as seen in the examples of my paintings that I have attached. While the initial painting is drying, students will draw out what negative space that they want to paint into their work, it can be abstract shapes such as my work is or it can be natural shapes such as leaves, flowers and really anything else the artists are inspired to create. We will then draw our shapes in pencil on the canvas and complete the final process of painting in our negative space letting our positive space shine through. I will lead conversations around duality of oneself in how we express ourselves and facilitate discussion around what makes a space a positive one while we paint. Each participant will come out of the party with a canvas they painted. This style lends itself to quick and fluid work, no matter how your first layers turn out it will pop once the negative space layer is added on top.
Friday, May 26, 2023: pARTy at Place Des Arts Coquitlam
Fresh and Fun Surface Pattern Design Collection
This is Cyd Eva’s debut collection of surface pattern designs created in Adobe Illustrators as fully repeatable designs. This collection of eight prints (8th blender print not shown here) comes in two different colour ways and is available for licensing on fabrics, stationary, home décor and more. Fresh and Fun is the start of Cyd’s creative expression on illustrator, expect to see more and more original designs like these in our upcoming fashion design collections.
Want to see more of our surface pattern designs, discuss designing custom prints or liscence our work? please Contact US
ART Sales
Cyd Eva’s art on canvas from her Creating Home collection painted in 2022/23 in Coquitlam Canada. The works are available for purchase with for local Vancouver pick up at iDance in Mount Pleasant where it is on exhibition.
Murals
Pattern Nation offers vibrant and pattern murals painted by Cyd Eva with the support of our team Costa Besta and Brianna Klassen.
We have had the opportunity to paint murals in Durban, Johannesburg South Africa, Los Angeles US, Montreal Canada, Oxford UK and Bangalore India. We have facilitated painting murals with youth in Durban with Painting on Purpose and in Coquitlam at Place Des Arts.
We would love to opportunity to live paint, paint murals and bring our vibrant colourful art to your space. Please contact us for all mural and art commissions.
