Tea Preville
BIOGRAPHY
Born in 1950 in a small farming community, north of Edmonton, Alberta, Tea left at an early age adventuring to Quebec and the Caribbean. In 1989, she moved to Nelson, British Columbia, to finish raising her sons.
After her sons left on their own adventures, Tea took every opportunity to seriously study her passion. Her art education was interrupted by a bout with breast cancer in late 2004 - "That was the fight of my life," she claims, "after coming face to face with death everything became precious."
Her love of the arts survived with her. She continued honing her skills in workshops with acclaimed Kootenays’ artists like John Cooper, Deb Thompson (present curator of Touchstones), Deb Andrews, Ted Wallace and Sandra Donohue, culminating in back-to-back workshops in Fall 2009 with White Rock’s celebrated Mike Svob.
"Mike made all my years of training make sense. I have always been a visual person, but a ’visual-arts’ person needs a language and Mike taught me that language. For me, Mike was a godsend - the key that unlocked my box of paints."
Tea’s recent colourful body of work reflects this influence. She is searching for her ’artist’s feet’ by catapulting herself into a world of whimsical, sweet joy on canvas.
"May God still be with me when I land," she laughs.
Like Gabriele Muenter of the Blue Riders of Germany, her work is "diverse but generally reflects an interest in free experimentation and spiritual expression."
Contact: teapreville@telus.net
Homepage: http://teapreville.com
