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Gu Xiong: Yellow River/Blue Culture
Chinese Garden, Montreal, CanadaStatue of Liberty, Chongqing, China
Organized by: Kamloops Art GalleryGuest curated by: Andrew Hunter
Yellow River/Blue Culture presents the work of Vancouver artist Gu Xiong and artist/curator Andrew Hunter. They have worked on several successful collaborations and once again have come together to focus on the issues of cultural hybridization and colonization with consumerism as a catalyst. Gu Xiong draws on similarities between the rapid urban and commercial development of cities in China and their Canadian counterparts, highlighting the commonality of those places where American corporate influence has blurred cultural borders. Hunter has produced an illustrated catalogue reflecting on similar issues, but from a different perspective.
Jim Logan
Hero, 1995acrylic, quills, beads on canvasCollection of the Kamloops Art GalleryGift of Jim Logan
Organized by: Kamloops Art GalleryGuest curated by: Andrew Oko
The Kamloops Art Gallery invited freelance curator Andrew Oko to develop a permanent collection exhibition for fall 2001. A daunting challenge for someone when you realize the Kamloops Art Gallery's collection now holds over 1,500 original works of art. Oko, a seasoned professional in the field, responded to this curatorial task by choosing an interesting selection of forty-one works, many of which are being shown for the first time since being acquired by the Gallery.
Explaining the evolution of this project and its thematic Oko responded in saying, “From an early point in my explorations I noticed strong groups of works in the collection by contemporary artists of both Aboriginal and Asian ancestry. (This is as it should be given the demographics of British Columbia.) And I decided to add works of contemporary artists of Euro-Canadian backgrounds to further the issues put forward by these artists of Aboriginal and Asian ancestry. The resultant themes are both current and critical to our well being, creating a narrative of interrelated concerns having to do with culture, nature and identity”.
Linda Favrholdt
Building/Unbuilding: Historical Sights, 1997Photo Kim ClarkeOriginal photo of Leland Hotel, Kamloops, B.C., 1950s, courtesy of Kamloops Museum & Archives
Organized by: Kamloops Art Gallery
Local artist Linda Favrholdt examines family history from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Her interest in local history and family stories are a large part of her production. Combining archival documentation with verse, she remembers her Chinook-speaking, stagecoach-driving grandpa, the late John Clapperton. Favrholdt explains, “even from his sick bed he would re-enact the cracking of his imaginary whip, dreaming about days gone by.” She contemplates the memories he left behind, questioning his actions and wondering just how good the “good ol’ days” really were.
Organized by: Kamloops Art GallerySponsored by: Kamloops Catering & Event Services, Oasis Gallery, and Radio NL
The Kamloops Art Gallery has organized a special two-week exhibition to give everyone an opportunity to preview the artwork by local, regional, and national artists that will be offered for auction on September 22. See works by Steve Mennie, Ann Kipling, Valerie Deacon, Vic Hamm, Tim Francis, Barbara Astman, Ann Meredith-Barry, and Eric Metcalfe. These are just a few of the artists who have donated work for the Kamloops Art Gallery’s principal fund-raising event of the year.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Divan Japonais, 1893
colour lithograph on wove paper Collection of the National Gallery of Canada
Organized and circulated by: National Gallery of CanadaSponsored in Kamloops by: CFJC-TV7 and Weyerhaeuser Canada
The 1890s was a period of tremendous popularity for prints throughout France. A large and eager market of collectors led to high competition among the publishers. In turn, they encouraged young artists’ creativity, both in design and innovative techniques. These artists were to become some of the most celebrated in French nineteenth century art—Toulouse-Lautrec and the group of visionary artists who called themselves the Nabis (from nebiim, the Hebrew word for prophets), including Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Ker Xavier Roussel, Félix Vallotton and Édouard Vuillard. For this generation of artists—many of them new to printmaking—lithography, and especially colour lithography, proved to be a medium that readily expressed their stylistic ambitions. The lithographic crayon enabled them to broadly draw the swelling contours and sinuous, sweeping forms they sought, while innovations in colour printing permitted a wide new range of brilliant tonal possibilities.
These young artists were influenced by the recent radical works, also included in the exhibition, of Gauguin, Redon and Puvis de Chavannes, with their imposing flat fields of colour and mysterious symbolism. Other influences included Japanese woodblock prints, very popular in France at that time, illustrations, folk art, and caricatures and comic designs. Artists merged these sources to explore in bold, novel ways, the street life, nightlife and domestic life of France. Arbitrary perspectives, sharply silhouetted forms and sudden croppings of compositions conveyed to the public both the urgent pulse and the underlying emotional tensions of contemporary life.
The Kamloops Art Gallery has organized an educational component to complement this exceptional exhibition, one which gives gallery patrons of all ages the opportunity to see, first hand, examples of printmaking techniques. The selection of print processes includes lithography, etching, engraving, drypoint, woodcut, linocut, and silkscreen. Visitors can also see select examples of prints from the Kamloops Art Gallery Permanent Collection, which illustrate printing techniques still used by artists today.
Howard Glossop
Noisy (installation detail), 2001
digital print
Taking Sides is a visual investigation of the everyday landscape that surrounds us. Local artist Howard Glossop presents visual alternatives, provoking a reconsideration of what we readily accept or reject. For example, the phrase “Beautiful B.C.” usually evokes memories of our beautiful province with its hills, grasslands and lush environment. Glossop’s work reminds us of an alternate viewpoint: the frequent not-so-beautiful realities that typically remain absent from tourist inspired imagery. As a visual moderator, Glossop questions whether people apply “filters” to the evidence that surrounds them.
Glossop collects images, predominately photographic, which he alters with digital technology, to create new meaning. His major interest remains the pursuit of digital technology, in which all forms of imagery can be captured, caressed, honed and manipulated into powerful images making strong statements about or interventions into a wide cross-section of society.
Emily Robertson
Tahitian Sunset, 2001
acrylic on canvas
The word “virtual” is defined in the dictionary as “being so in effect, although not in actual fact,” but for Kamloops Virtual School students, taking an art class at the Kamloops Art Gallery every Tuesday is very real!
Parents of these students have decided to have their children learn at home. With assistance from School District 73, students are connected to the Internet to allow them access to learning materials and communication with teachers via e-mail. There are a variety of reasons why parents choose this route of education; however, they all agree that the subject of art is an important component.
Many studies have shown that creating art not only removes boundaries and allows students to explore aspects of life around them in new ways, but also connects with other disciplines, such as math, reading and writing.
Recently, the Virtual School students studied the life and creative process of Paul Gauguin, a painter and printmaker of the late 1800s. Each student selected either a painting of Gauguin’s to study or a scene that would have been common to Gauguin while he was living in Tahiti. Using only the primary colours and black and white acrylic paint, the students created their own paintings, using Gauguin for inspiration.
This collaborative project, entitled Gauguin’s Quilt, was produced by John Bantock age 9), Tessa Bantock (age 7), Kathleen Fath (age 10), Jenna Fischer (age 8), Genevieve Kang (age 11), Camille Robertson (age 10), Emily Robertson (age 12), Morgan Sidky (age 11), and Oskar Wroz (age 6).
Ed PienTraverser Vers (installation detail), 2000Photo: D. Farley.
Traverser Vers, which, literally translated, means “to travel towards,” is a site specific installation that invites the viewer to physically travel through the space of the artwork. This visually captivating labyrinth alters the space of the east gallery, where the work is suspended from 24-foot ceilings and gently cascades to the wooden floors. The walls of this intricate structure act as a canvas to contain the distinctive drawings which Pien has become known for. A hybrid of human/demon-like characters, the drawings randomly adorn the walls of the maze.
A publication produced in collaboration with the Contemporary Art Gallery of Vancouver and featuring an essay by writer Robin Laurence is available in The Gallery Store and through ABC Art Books Canada. Laurence discusses the CAG’s recent exhibition, Beyond Here, in conjunction with the Traverser Vers exhibition at the KAG.
Brian WoodRolling-Out #7, 1996 Collection of the Kamloops Art Gallery
New York-based Canadian artist Brian Wood’s exhibition, Cribbed, brings together a diverse body of photo-based works from the permanent collections of the Kamloops Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Canada and the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography in Ottawa. Along with these works is an installation of new black and white drawings produced on Mylar film. This selection of work includes a wide range of Wood’s production, contextualizing the natural progression and development of the artist's practice over a number of years.
A publication of Brian Wood's works, with an essay by poet/writer Lisa Robertson, is available in The Gallery Store and through ABC Art Books Canada.
Responding to local dialogue surrounding graffiti, KAG curator Susan Edelstein invited local cultural worker Vaughn Warren to address, within the sanctioned walls of a gallery, the contested issue of mark-making or graffiti. Warren responded by inviting local artist Take5 to create a site-specific work for the gallery window. Take5 agreed to take on the challenge.
Expanding the parameters of the discussion was the objective Edelstein and Warren started with, while acknowledging the schizophrenic disjunction between high art and subcultural expression. Aware of the difference between the elaborate installation created for the art gallery and the ongoing dialogue taking place between the graf writers of the back alleys, they hope to illuminate another aspect of art production.
This exhibition is presented to coincide with ArtWalk 2001, an annual event organized by the Community Arts Council of Kamloops.
Bernadette Mertens-McAllisterSouvenir pictures, 1998Photo courtesy of the artist
Local artist Bernadette Mertens-McAllister has created a series of mixed-media collage works that deal with identity and representation. With a background in photography, Mertens-McAllister approaches her work by initially documenting people and places that have made an impression on her life. Choosing the photograph that relates most directly to her overall concept, Mertens-McAllister applies images to canvases made out of illustration board. Applying paint, pastel, inks and various other mediums, she expands the static photograph she initially started with. Each piece becomes a vignette, with layered materials and vernacular moments, both real and imagined.
Eric MetcalfeVolute Krater, 1997-1999 clay: fired, painted and glazedVessel produce by Gillian McMillanPhoto by Ken Mayer
Organized by: Southern Alberta Art Gallery in collaboration with Kamloops Art GalleryCurated by: Joan Stebbins and Susan Edelstein
The Attic Project, a collaborative project curated by Joan Stebbins of Southern Alberta Art Gallery and Susan Edelstein of Kamloops Art Gallery, features the work of well-known artist Eric Metcalfe. Metcalfe, an important figure in Canadian art, is known for his many contributions to the arts including work in the area of performance, video, painting, and, more recently, sculpture. Since 1995 Metcalfe has worked with ceramist Gillian McMillan developing various utilitarian objects that range from tea sets to dinner settings (all of which were commissioned pieces). More recently they have collaborated on a series of Greek vessels by the Attic artists of the Archaic phase (5th and 6th century B.C.).
Thematically consistent with his other works, these vessels bear the ever-evolving neo-brute leopard motif. These new works challenge the concept of what is considered to be high art or “modern art” versus what is considered craft or merely “decorative art.” For The Attic Project, Metcalfe has created 27 different vessels, including Volute Krater (pictured on the cover) and the curvaceous Loutrophoros. Metcalfe paints onto the new reproductions of traditional ancient Greek vases creating works that conflate the canon of “modernity” with the notion of “decorative” or craft into a hybridized body of work. The exhibition also includes a site-specific wall mural, gouache drawings, and a silkscreen print.
This travelling exhibition has been exhibited at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery in Lethbridge, the Maltwood Art Gallery in Victoria, and is scheduled to be exhibited at the Canadian Craft Museum, Vancouver, in 2002. This collaboration with the Southern Alberta Art Gallery includes the publication of a catalogue with text by Montreal-based writer Peter White.
David MilneInterior with Paintings, 1914oil on canvasCollection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Acquired with the assistance of the Women's Committee and the Winnipeg FoundationPhoto: Ernest Mayer, Winnipeg Art Gallery
Organized by: Winnipeg Art GalleryCurated by: Mary Jo Hughes
David Milne (1882-1953) was born and raised in Paisley, Ontario, and moved to New York City in 1903 to pursue a career in illustration. The 13 years he spent in New York were formative to his development as an artist. Painting soon became his passion, and he exhibited quite frequently. Milne holds a prominent place in the history of Canadian art as one of the first Canadian artists to have rejected traditional representation styles by applying modernist theories to his painting techniques. He painted the landscape and intimate spaces around him with an eye that was constantly searching for innovative means of representation. His career was dominated by his ongoing search for freedom in his painting—the ability to create a work that challenges the viewer’s expectations without cumbersome details. The modernist influences that he absorbed while studying and living in New York were emphasized through formal characteristics such as line, shape, and colour. This comprehensive exhibition covers not only the chronology of Milne’s life, but also touches upon his formal interests and the different media in which he worked—watercolours, oils, and drypoint printing.
William McAuslandDecember Shadows, 1999acrylic on canvas
Organized by: Kamloops Art GalleryCurated by: Susan Edelstein
William McAusland, a Kamloops artist and illustrator, works in several styles and media to produce both commercial and self-directed imagery. Capturing the landscape of the Interior, especially in and around Kamloops, on canvas is the primary focus of his art—an attempt to both document and pay homage to this region’s rare beauty and diversity.
McAusland is a graduate of Capilano College. His work, both illustration and fine art, can be viewed at www.artmotive.com.
These works are for sale through The Gallery Store.
Ann KiplingFerns, 1966 drypoint on paper 11.5 x 8.8 cmCollection of the Kamloops Art Gallery 1999-095. Photo: Kim Clarke
Organized by: Kamloops Art GalleryGuest curated by: Roger H. Boulet
Although Ann Kipling’s drawings have been featured in a number of group and solo exhibitions in British Columbia and across Canada, her prints have rarely been exhibited. During the summer of 1997, while going through her prints with curator Roger Boulet in preparation for this exhibition, Ann Kipling’s interest in printmaking, long dormant, was reawakened. The 78 works featured in this exhibition include 57 prints dated between 1958 and 1967 from the Kamloops Art Gallery permanent collection and 21 prints produced during 1999 and 2000.
Kipling’s earliest essays in the print media date from 1958 when she was a student at the Vancouver School of Art (now the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design). She first experimented with woodcut and lithography. In the early 1960s, Kipling purchased a small etching press and taught herself drypoint, etching, and aquatint. This intaglio work seems to have come about as a result of her desire to draw directly onto copper and zinc plates.
Kipling’s working method usually involves completing a drawing or print in one session. The works are never based on preliminary drawings or sketches, but record the artist’s drawing directly onto the plate. In the early years, she took her copper plates out into the landscape and drew her reactions to and visions of the forms before her. Kipling still uses this method of working and avoids work that is not based on direct and intensive observation.
The drypoints done in the sixties were accomplished by Kipling herself working both as artist and printer. She learned and developed her technique as she pulled plates, producing a significant body of graphic works between 1964 and 1967. For the new works, rather than doing the actual printing herself, Kipling used the facilities of a professional print shop, producing and proofing the plates with a master printer.
The prints that Ann Kipling, with the assistance of master printers, has produced in the last two years are an important addition to her body of work. They display a new graphic confidence and ambition even as they are rooted in her printmaking activity of the sixties. After a 30-year hiatus, Ann Kipling has returned to printmaking.
An accompanying full-colour exhibition catalogue with essays by Ian Thom and guest curator Roger Boulet is available in the Gallery Store.
Suzo HickeyWhen I Was Twelve (installation detail), 1994mixed mediaPhoto: Kim Clarke
Five artists from the region have explored cultural and personal memories to produce the work in this exhibition. Responding to the theme of “home,” they have approached the subject matter from diverse perspectives.
Some of the works recall family histories and enduring friendships, while others respond to personal identity issues and sexuality. All of the artists in the show are or were residents of Kamloops, either born or raised here or migrating to Kamloops from various parts of Canada. As diverse as these works might appear, they are united by the city of Kamloops—the departure point for visual exploration.
Suzo Hickey’s work combines sculpture with narrative to depict a personal journey that leads to Vancouver. Laura Hargrave challenges the concept of new urbanism and planned communities, while Darlene Kalynka recalls her childhood home in the prairies, juxtaposing imagery from her past with her home in Kamloops. Ted Smith’s intimate paintings of private interiors provide glimpses of homes away from home. Brianna Palmer, who is temporarily residing in Alberta while completing her MFA, reminds us that thoughts of home go hand in hand with memory, becoming an evolutionary process that is tactile and imaginary.
An exhibition catalogue with text by curator Susan Edelstein is available in the Gallery Store.
Angela Evansteapot, creamer and sugar bowl clayPhoto: Kim Clarke
Angela Evans and Kathleen Raven, two local ceramic artists, have independently created functional vessels that celebrate the ritual of tea drinking. T42 presents a diverse collection of ceramic teapots, incorporating functionality with contemporary aesthetics and materials.
Kathleen RavenDomestic Bliss #3earthenwarePhoto: Kim Clarke
The work of Kathleen Raven is on display in Gallery Under Glass (5th and Victoria display window). The installation combines her whimsical teapots with hand-made chairs. Painted in bright colours, the furniture and ceramic works set the tone for Raven’s tea party atmosphere.
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