By Karen Bailey
“If it’s easy, I don’t want to do it.” Artist Sharon Lafferty’s eyes sparkle as she describes her approach to painting. Nothing is simple about Lafferty’s work: the characters who inhabit her art are unconventional and complex.
The Lowertown resident initially sold her fabric sculptures in the form of quirky dolls as an independent Byward Market vendor before being invited to exhibit at the Lookout Bar on York Street and later at Ecclection. Her off-the-wall creations proved increasingly popular, and as a result of the laborious process of stuffing the dolls, Sharon suffered a serious repetitive strain injury to her shoulder. Serendipitously, in 1999 she discovered she enjoyed painting more than making dolls, so she embarked upon this new, less physically demanding occupation. A friend suggested she sell her bizarre portraits on eBay when it was in its infancy. She scanned and posted them, selling throughout Canada, the United States and internationally to Australia, Latin America and Europe. This led to an insatiable appetite for herworks within the online market.
The Byward Market connection continued with sales of her paintings at the Tickled Pink shop. Former Byward Market vendor, past Ottawa School of Art student, current Lowertown resident and Rectory Art House studio member, Lowertown is central to all aspects of artist Sharon Lafferty’s life and work. After relocating from New Brunswick to Ottawa in 1992 with husband Dallas, they first lived in Hull, then Hintonburg. The Byward Market became a magnet for both of them. Regular Lowertown forays to shop and explore prompted the move to a Parent Street apartment in 1997.
The artist’s work explores the power of memory to define our existence and has evolved to include pensive children in dark, mysterious settings or haunting figures in psychologically charged situations, always touched with a pinch of humour. Utilizing her strong sense of composition, Lafferty initially sketches the image in white chalk on canvas, then paints the eyes first. She mischievously points out, “You don’t know who you’re dealing with until you do the eyes.” A process-based artist, Sharon embarks on continual change within her paintings as she strives for resolution.
Her art reflects an original career path. One of six children born to an Irish father and a French-Belgian mother in a small town in New Brunswick, her sense of curiosity emerged early and learning came easily. These traits have never left her.
As a lab technician in New Brunswick with Forestry Canada, Lafferty worked in forest entomology. Later, she undertook a teaching degree with a specialty in art education – it never developed into a career because her sense of play trumped any desire to discipline children. As Sharon tells it, while doing her practicum she preferred getting her hands messy, finger painting alongside the six-year-olds rather than exercising control over the class. She happily returned to Forestry Canada and continued to work in entomology and the aerial survey program assessing tree conditions, damage and mortality. She then worked as an independent contractor, conducting research projects for Forestry Canada until her move to Ottawa.
A self-taught artist with natural ability, Sharon learned important technical skills while studying full-time at the Ottawa School of Art (OSA) on George Street from 2007-09. At the OSA, one of the oldest art institutions in Canada, Lafferty developed the confidence to bring her art to the next level, going on to exhibit paintings at Cube Gallery, the Ottawa Art Gallery and to present installation work at the Rectory Art House on Murray Street during Nuit Blanche 2012 and 2013.
Acrylic and oil canvases checker the walls from floor to ceiling in Sharon’s Rectory Art House studio. Her subjects are inspired by vintage photographs, contemporary European catwalks and her vivid imagination. In There Were Three, standing knee-high in a pool of water, three red-haired girls hold hands in a circle and gaze at the viewer. A dense forest looms behind them. What just happened? What will happen next? One is reminded of the patterned richness of Gustav Klimt’s landscapes married with the sociologically layered narrative found in Edward Gorey’s drawings.
Sharon was one of the first of eight artists to rent studio space in the deconsecrated St. Brigid’s Church Rectory when it re-opened as the Rectory Art House in 2011. Her studio installations for Nuit Blanche in 2012 and 2013 challenged her creative powers, catapulting her art into a complex three-dimensional fantasy world. With the future in mind, she contemplates the nascent stage of an installation involving paper, botanical drawings and experiments with scale. Sharon’s next project promises to embrace wonder, tension and insight – in equal measure.