Rebeka Darylin
Murray Harbour, PE
I’m a visual artist living and working in south eastern Prince Edward Island. I create realistic and abstract landscapes in acrylics and oils.
MessageI am an artist living in Murray Harbour, PEI, Canada.
Born in Newfoundland, I grew up in many places, but mostly Charlottetown, PEI. After moving to Ontario and working as a self-taught website designer, I enrolled in Graphic Design at St. Lawrence College (Kingston, ON) in 2001. The first year of that program emphasized the foundations behind colour and design techniques, practiced through traditional hands-on skills, because computer software was changing quickly but fundamental concepts of visual communication remain the same.
Chronic health issues prevented me from completing the 3-year program, and out of frustration I set aside visual art practice for many years. However, I explored creative writing and textile arts, and published original knitting patterns.
Moving back to Epekwitk/Prince Edward Island in 2019 (about 20 years later, with a spouse in tow – as one does) revived my desire to express my experience of this place through art.
I learned traditional rug hooking from Glen Gosbee at PEI Community School in 2020, working on my own original pictures since 2023.
I first began landscape painting in September 2022 in acrylics, then tried oil paints for the very first time in July 2023, in the Traditional Glaze Oil class taught by Kathy Marlene Bailey.
The histories of the places where I put down roots, especially the history of communication and connection between places, are also meaningful to me, and I volunteered on the Board of Directors of Cape Bear Lighthouse and Marconi Station from 2020 – 2024.
Since January 2023, I have also been teaching Knitting at PEI Community School of Murray Harbour.
Statement
I am an autistic queer person, who has been living with physical and mental disability for most of my life, and who has been “from away” in many places in North America. As a small child, I spent a year as an illegal immigrant in the US, which shaped my paradigms of home and belonging, and the vulnerability of identity. I acknowledge that the places I now live in, work in, and portray in my art are located in the traditional and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq.
As a result of my own experiences, my core values include compassion, accessibility, and diversity, especially as expressed through connection and belonging.
The scenes I paint exist in relation to spaces and times beyond what is shown on the canvas. What is on the other side of the hill, past the bend in the road, below the surface of the water? How has this place changed or stayed the same over the past 10, 100, or 1000 years, and what will happen here soon, or far in the future? When I feel a connection with someone who also immersed themself in that place long ago, or yesterday, or tomorrow – that is when I want to portray my own experience of that moment, to explore how painting can communicate both the changing and the enduring experience of a place.
I am inspired when I feel immersed in “sense of place” intertwined with “sense of wonder”, which I most often find in liminal spaces where different worlds coexist and shape each other – especially where the land meets the ocean. Coastlines that are never the same twice can come to feel as familiar and welcoming as home.
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