On Thursday, Feb 12 at 7: 30 PM, there was a screening of the Trials of Eve,  a 1990 film
            by Gretchen Jordan-Bastow, based on Granirer’s suite of the same name.  At that time, a
            second book signing also took place.

            This exhibition was a rare opportunity to trace and examine this prolific  Vancouver artist’s
            development and the unfolding of her imagery and ideas spanning forty years and three continents.
            The work of Pnina Granirer has, over the last four decades, formed a personal allegory that
            combines imagery from her life and family, her visions and travels. Granirer’s life in war torn Europe
            was followed by a succession of moves from Romania to Israel, to the U.S. Midwest, and Montreal
            in the late 1960’s, and finally, to Vancouver.

            The exhibition traced the artist’s development from her early watercolours and drawings done
            in Israel, Montreal, and the US Midwest, to the various series of paintings, mixed media works
            and graphics that evoke the rainforest or rock formations, on the beaches of the Gulf Islands.
            Granirer’s work since the 1980’s has also combined elements from ancient mythologies,
            juxtaposed with the natural environment of the west coast.

            Granirer is as likely to evoke an image from her travels to Spain or Japan as she is to create
            large paintings of blood red poppies or abstractions of fountains from the Alhambra in Spain,
            or from an abandoned millstone quarry on Gabriola Island.

            Granirer took a stand against oppression and racism, which is expressed in works now hanging
            at the offices of the UN Human Rights Commission in New York and the Yad Vashem Museum
            in Jerusalem.  She also addresses the issue of discrimination against women in her all encompas-
            sing work, The Trials of Eve, which has been published as a book and later made into a film.  She
            has always remained true to her own vision, taking risks by refusing to follow trends, dogmas and
            the fashions of the day.

            Gregg Simpson, curator and fellow artist, writes in the catalogue essay: “…her works betray a
            belief in images which reflect the universality of humanity; she has the ability to both draw from
            deep ties to the cultures of the Old World, even the ancient or pre-historic ones, and to simul-
            taneously transmute them into something uniquely west coast.  Granirer has become a truly
            Canadian artist, as is shown by the evolution of her work from the first tentative stays in Montreal,
            in the 1960’s, to her permanent move to Vancouver later in the decade.”