The surrealistic artwork of the late Julian North has found its final resting place with the Town of Ladysmith - the first permanent collection for the municipality.
A full room of community members assembled at the Ladysmith Waterfront Gallery last Thursday for the opening gala for a four-day exhibition dedicated to North.
He died in 2010 at the age of 86 and the artwork - a collection of 30 pieces inspired by the Bible and religious texts - was inherited by sister Victoria Bellefeuille.
“He had an internal and intuitive sense that he paid full attention to all the time,” Bellefeuille said, who lives in Duncan.
“He studied people, he studies psychology.”
North was also one of the founders of the Ladysmith Food Bank in the 1990s.
Mayor Aaron Stone was a teenager working at a local gas station when he met North.
“We had conversations and they were wide-ranging and he was as much a philosopher as he was an artist,” he said.
“He would tell me his perspectives and really enhance my outlook on the world and he would leave and every time, whether it was a happy conversation or a little bit tense, he would say bless you.”
Among North’s work is the 12 Disciplines, a dozen pastel paintings depicting emotions ranging from Love to Fright.
“I thought he did a fantastic job of depicting emotions,” Bellefeuille said.
“If there’s any particular one that speaks to you just pay attention a bit and see if it resonates as something you want to discuss or work on.”
The paintings took anywhere from a week to 10 days for North to finish.
North was a self-taught artist who was inspired by others such as Salvador Dalí.
He was also an Ordained Minister and opened the Church of the Heart out of his home in Victoria.
“The interests that we’ve had, the spirituality in our lives, to me it’s a remarkable path that we’re all living,” Bellefeuille said.
Renee Hutchinson, now 34, was a teenager when she met North volunteering at his Ladysmith food bank.
She shared an anecdote of one of the many conversations the two had about philosophy, community and art.
“I think that was his legacy in Ladysmith - he shone a light on a lot of hearts and helped a lot of people,” she said. “I think he inspired me to be a good part of this community and continue his legacy for my kids and everybody elses.”
Today the Food Bank is run by the LRCA and serves 300 clients weekly - about 40 per cent of which are children.
The town plans to store and protect it the artwork for the near future.
“I would love to see it displayed somewhere where it’s accessible to the public and can be viewed - so if not in the short term at least as a long-term placement for sure,” Stone said.
