2024 August - Solo exhibit, The Mole Pop-Up Gallery. Large Botanicals Celebrating Colour, Upliftment, and Healing. Curator: Quentin Wright. Address: Located at the rear of 1157 Pendrell Street, Vancouver, B.C., Canada. Access from Jepson-Young Lane. ABOUT THE ARTIST Kathleen Tonnesen "If I can’t paint the faces of people, I can paint the faces of flowers." By Quentin Wright, August, 2024. Kathleen was born in Cape Town, South Africa and immigrated to Canada in 1998. She is a graduate of Thompson Rivers University, BC. She has carved a professional career as a working artist since 1990 and earned a reputation as an artist dedicated to the enhancement of public spaces with meaningful, thought-provoking art. This is an exhibition of large floral works. Kathleen has very limited vision and she explained how this new exhibit was inspired by her healing journey, and the gardens and the gardeners at Mole Hill. “When I came to live at Mole Hill in 2019 the only vision I had was out the lower quadrant of my right eye. I was preparing myself for going completely blind because that is what the Ophthalmologist told me was happening. I tried to keep creating art but as I lost more and more sight and then I thought that was the end of painting for me.” However, Kathleen was persuaded to submit a painting for Mole Hill’s post-covid Community Art exhibit “16x16” in 2022. Although she was no longer able to paint what she wanted to paint – detailed portraits - she could still create more impressionistic work. “A neighbour found that the painting was very suitable for him. He purchased it and found it to be helpful in his life. It made me realise that even though I couldn’t paint the way I used to paint, my work could still connect with an audience.” “By this time I had had eye surgery and regained sight in half of my right eye. Practicing martial arts trained me to be able to see out of the left half.” Another major inspiration for Kathleen was the gardens, and the gardeners at Mole Hill. “The importance of the Mole Hill gardens cannot be over-stated. In regaining my sight, the flowers at Mole Hill were very important to me because I had been at a point where I couldn’t see flowers or even colours. The flowers around Mole Hill gave me something to look forward to every day as my sight improved. I then thought I will just paint very large flowers. If I can’t paint the faces of people, I can paint the faces of flowers.” “I want to demonstrate deep gratitude to all the gardeners at Mole Hill, who nurture and keep the community looking so beautiful. And also gratitude to the essential beauty of the flowers which have helped me to heal.”

2023 July - Solo exhibit, The Mole Pop-Up Gallery. Curator: Quentin Wright. 1157 Pendrell Street, West End, Vancouver, access from Jepson-Young Lane. Art Review by Ms. Cindy Hops, B.Sc., B.S.W., M.Ed., Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, (June 20, 2023). "Kathleen Katon Tonnesen has spent her life savouring the warmth of the light and attempting to capture its beauty through her paintings. Despite the fact that Kathleen was born without sight in her left eye, or perhaps because of it, she became enchanted with the dance by which light ignites matter. In an unfortunate twist of fate, the sight in Kathleen's right eye began to dim due to a genetic condition. Determined not to forfeit her relationship with light and form, Kathleen embarked upon a journey to find creative ways to overcome life's obstacles and to capture the world through the unseen energy that vibrates between souls. This exhibit marks Kathleen's triumphant return to the world of art. After years of emotionally adjusting to vision loss, Kathleen succeeded in rehabilitating herself through her commitment to the intensely focused martial art discipline of Yoshinkan Aikido. This discipline has empowered her to better understand her body, its relationship to space and the abstract understanding of how her mind and spirit move through it. The year of 2023 marks a triumphant one in which her decade-long journey back to empowerment was commemorated with the completion of her Bachelor of Arts, Psychology degree from Thompson Rivers University, British Columbia, Canada, and the receipt of her black belt (Shodan) in Yoshinkan Aikido, and the opening of this exhibit that celebrates the unseen energy that unites us all."

"To witness and capture a musician in flow; a resonating entity at one with his world, is an entrancing suspension of time." - Poetry © Kathleen Tonnesen, 2001.

"We inhabit our skin suits of time. Our anatomy is beautiful. Embrace the suit you are in. It is your sacred place." - Kathleen Katon Tonnesen, 2000.

Release of Souls - A Gift of Healing from Canadians to Americans

Flowers and Trees

Large scale murals by Kathleen Katon Tonnesen