Bill BurnsTop: Hard-hat
Bottom: Work Gloves
from the series Safety Gear for Small Animals, 1994-2004
Safety Gear for Small Animals, Bill Burns, Director, a smash hit touring North America, makes its stop in Kamloops this fall. This exhibition is an important retrospective of Canadian artist Bill Burns. Over the past ten years, Burns has created a fascinating world of finely manufactured model safety and rescue gear for animals, along with drawings, illustrations, and instruction manuals for rescuing, relocating, and rehabilitating animals—all produced by his “company,” Safety Gear for Small Animals (SGSA).
Using the conventions of both traditional museum display and print-media marketing, Burns humorously combines his tiny rescue and safety items for animals with helpful information that guides viewers through the exhibition. Beneath the appeal of the miniscule safety vests, work gloves, bullet-proof vests, U.V. goggles and respirators developed for our furry friends, lies a frightening warning about our stewardship of the environment. Publications by SGSA include titles like How to Help Animals Escape from Natural History and How to Help Animals Escape from Degraded Habitats. The exhibition is geared towards viewers of all ages, with special displays and tours for children.
Bill Burns was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Victoria in 1980. He then studied at Goldsmiths' College, University of London, England, for a Masters of Fine Arts, graduating in 1987. Burns is the recipient of awards from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.
This exhibition was co-produced by the Kamloops Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Evergreen Cultural Centre, Kenderdine Art Gallery, Liane and Danny Taran Gallery at the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Southern Alberta Art Gallery, and the Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery.
A catalogue of the exhibition is available at The Gallery Store.
Linda WaltonDrifting Algae, 2006 (detail)
“About the same time as we heard the toads, I became aware that the water levels were dropping over the course of the year. Being an alkali lake, this was easy to see, as the white salts that precipitated from the water ringed it in ever thickening bands. As this happened, the lake became very interesting from a visual point of view…” Linda Walton
Barnes Lake is a well-known landmark in the hills of East Barnhartvale, and the subject of study for scientists, as well as long-time Kamloops artist Linda Walton. The home of over 35 species, including two endangered animals (the spadefoot toad and the western turtle), Barnes Lake is also studied as a potential source for new antibiotics. Small, and sometimes pungent, this lake and other alkaline lakes of British Columbia’s Interior form an important part of our intricate environment. Yet in 2005, along with several other alkaline lakes in the region, and for the first time in living memory, Barnes Lake dried up completely.
This exhibition marks the culmination of years of work by Linda Walton, an artist well known for her ceramics. Stimulated initially by the visual beauty of Barnes Lake, Walton’s studies have taken her on a fascinating journey through the history and science of this natural landmark. The foundation of her exhibition comprises two large ceramic floor pieces inspired by the dry lake bed and new mixed media work in materials hitherto unexplored in her career. These new works are presented to the public for the first time in this solo exhibition.
Linda Walton studied fine art at the Berkshire College of Art and Leicester University. From 1975 to 2005, she taught ceramics, design, drawing, and painting at Thompson Rivers University (formerly University College of the Cariboo/Cariboo College). Her ceramics have been shown throughout North America, including Chicago, San Francisco, and Vancouver. In 2005 she moved to Vancouver Island, but still makes artworks about the Kamloops region.
During the Kamloops Art Gallery’s 2006 Summer Art Classes, children enjoyed a variety of courses, including The Magic of Clay. With program teacher Shauna Gross, students from age 7 to 14 celebrated this fall’s salmon run by creating ceramic sockeye salmon. Under the tutelage of local ceramist Leslie Bolin, students Sarah Fitzgerald, Sadie MacKinnon, Ivy Porter, April Read, Kayla Read, Brandon Ruppel, and Olivia Strodl designed, molded and painted clay salmon.
Anonymous
Silence
multimedia: acrylic paint, paper and balsa wood
The Open Gallery features compelling art created by women in the Kamloops area dealing with substance addiction and harm reduction. The exhibition is organized by a group of nurses working in the community known as Networking of Women (NOW). During a series of workshops facilitated by NOW, women who were dealing with addiction and harm reduction were able to express their needs, desires, and histories in a safe and creative manner. In May 2006, at the International Conference on Drug Related Harm in Vancouver, NOW members presented Voice, which included narratives, poetry, and biographies accompanying a Power Point presentation of the visual artwork. Now, for the first time, this powerful collection of visual art is on display for the public at the Kamloops Art Gallery.
Brendan TangManga Ormolu ver. 2.0-h, 2004ceramic
Kamloops artist Brendan Tang exhibits his beautiful and humorous ceramics in a solo exhibition in The Cube. A recent MFA graduate from the Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Illinois, Tang has returned to B.C. with a body of work that explores the “spectacle” of ceramics. His vivid ceramics address this fine craft’s marginal role in contemporary art. Opulently decorated, Tang’s art is meticulously crafted and inspired by 18th century French porcelains. He contrasts rich ornamentation with the unexpected and hilarious addition of non-traditional materials, such as self-portrait decals and swaying plastic flowers. Tang’s visual puns are light-hearted but critical, raising a variety of issues, such as concepts of beauty, class, globalization, and consumerism, as well as ethnic and gendered identities. Brendan Tang has exhibited throughout Canada and the USA. This is his first exhibition at the Kamloops Art Gallery.
Works in The Cube are available for purchase through The Gallery Store.
Dawn (Burn) Aziz
Urban Quilt, 2006
mixed media
Back for another stellar round, the Kamloops Art Gallery’s Annual Art Auction Exhibition features works of art from the locally famous to the nationally renowned. This year's exhibition showcases works of art generously donated by talented artists from across the nation. Laura Hargrave, Sheila Macdonald, Daphne Odjig, and Tricia Sellmer are just a few of the celebrated artists whose works are included. In anticipation of his 2007 exhibition at KAG, Werner Braun has donated one of his beautiful paintings. To expand the bidding choices available, local businesses have expressed their commitment to the arts by donating valuable services and experiences for the auction. Come preview all the fabulous art work before the gala evening of fun, bidding, and fine dining.
Huang YongyuAutumn Interesthanging scroll, ink and colours on paperCourtesy Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
Chinese society and culture underwent many tumultuous cultural, social, and political changes in the 20th century, and these changes are reflected in the work of Chinese artists. Although 20th century Chinese painting is the outcome of a rich and ancient painting tradition that developed largely uninterrupted over thousands of years, the changes experienced by the Chinese during the last century resulted in many dynamic new artistic movements, all of which play against tradition and innovation.
This exhibition brings together 66 Chinese scroll paintings (watercolour and ink paintings mounted on long hanging scrolls) that date from the first days to the last days of the 20th century. Part of the collection of Brian S. McElney, one of the greatest collectors of Chinese watercolour paintings in the world, and now in the care of the AGGV, Tradition and Innovation focuses on three major themes: romantic landscapes, flowers and birds, and figure paintings. These three categories are the traditional mainstays of scroll painting, yet works within each grouping vary widely and reflect one hundred years of change and development.
Traditionally, Chinese landscape paintings differ from Western realist landscapes and relate more closely to impressionism in that artists freely omit objects that are not essential to their thought process. Their paintings create an inner poetic reality rather than an outward likeness and are often very romantic and tranquil. Painted with great elegance and frequently with humour, the Chinese portrayal of creatures and plants are also quite different from Western depictions—they have an underlying simplicity not bound by time or place and are aimed at being in harmony with nature. On the other hand, Chinese figure painters often exaggerate features and facial expressions of people, and often prefer to paint old, wrinkled people, in order to best capture the inner poetic reality of an individual.
With work by traditional Chinese masters, socialist realist painters under Mao, Taiwanese folk artists, and contemporary conceptualist painters, this exhibition offers a rich and rewarding overview of the complex, dynamic, and poetic art of Chinese scroll painting in the 20th century.
Anne VaasjoBlue Ice #1, 1989oil on canvas and masoniteKamloops Art Gallery collection
Turn-of-the-century French painter Paul Cezanne is known as the first artist in the Western tradition to abstract the forms of still-lifes and landscapes into simpler geometric forms in order to better represent the “essence” of an image. Since then, artists all over the Western world have used this approach to produce pictures of extraordinary simplicity, elegance, and charm. In this small exhibition, Kamloops Art Gallery curatorial staff have selected work from the Permanent Collection to demonstrate the myriad ways that geometrical abstraction has been employed in the landscape painting of Canada and the region. Included are works spanning a forty-year period by Gerry Johnson, Toni Onley, Jerry Pethick, Ted Smith, Anne Vaasjo, and Alan Wood.
Jea-Heoun ChoMeeting, 2006mixed media
This summer’s Curator’s Choice is the second annual exhibition of work by graduating students at Thompson Rivers University, selected and arranged by KAG Curator Jen Budney. The artists in Curator’s Choice are Jea-Heoun Cho, Nikki Greig, Rubeena K. Sandhu, and Tannis Wood. These artists graduated from the Bachelor of Fine Arts and Diploma of Fine Arts programs at Thompson Rivers University in the spring of 2006. Students at TRU graduate with a wide variety of specialties, including ceramics, printmaking, sculpture, painting, photography, and installation. Like last year’s exhibition, this summer’s Curator’s Choice is not so much a “best of” show, but rather one that draws out and unites thematic and aesthetic threads running through the works of these emerging artists. As a bonus to all collectors looking for the latest trends, the works on display are available for purchase through The Gallery Store.
Wendy-Anne Skjerpen
Pin-Up, 2006
low fire red clay with underglazes
Lana Gagnon, Linda Jules, Wendy-Anne Skjerpen, and Megs Waterous are local artists who have studied at Thompson Rivers University. Brought together in a 4th year course, these four ceramists demonstrate their interest in the creative process as a means of exploring formal possibilities of their media, as well as personal and social issues.
While the process of creation is important to all of the artists, the various stages of development in creating ceramic works form an integral part of Gagnon’s and Waterous’ personal artistic inquiries. Gagnon views the process as a method of communication, allowing her to convey personal ideas and sentiments. Playing with the idea of assigning gender to inanimate vessels, Waterous experiments with surface decoration, form, and glazing technique.
Social issues, and particularly gender issues, play an important role for these artists. Skjerpen exposes a personalized notion of femininity: self-identifying as a tomboy, she attempts to reveal the social construction of femininity in her work Pin-Up. Jules takes on a more universal approach in World’s Child. Using the child as emblem of human vulnerability, Jules reflects on the relationship between humans and the changing physical and social landscape.
Works in the Gallery Under Glass are available for sale in the Gallery Store.
This exhibition features the work of students participating in the first KAG summer art class for 2006, Chinese Scroll and Calligraphy. The students’ instructor, visiting artist Quenis Qin, studied traditional Chinese paintings in her home town of Shanghai, China. She has lived in Kamloops for the past four years. Throughout the week-long class, Qin demonstrated basic techniques and guided students through the process of painting scrolls and calligraphy designs. The resulting body of work is elegant and unique, and a treasure to enjoy.
Harvey Volainefrom the series For Francis, who could not paint a smile, 2005coloured pencil on paper
Local artist Harvey Volaine returns to the Kamloops Art Gallery in this solo exhibition of thoughtful and vibrant drawings based on the lives of Radha and Krishna, two central figures of the Hindu religion and symbols of the highest form of love. Volaine, a self-taught artist and devotee of Krishna, is known for the boldness of his painted and drawn images and his willingness to tackle psychologically and spiritually challenging subjects in his work. He last exhibited at the KAG in 1990, in the group exhibition Exploration: east/west. Born in Toronto, Volaine has been living and working in the Kamloops region since 1988. His latest series of work uses both coloured paper and the torn covers of hardcover books as drawing surfaces. This exhibition is dedicated to the late modern English painter, Francis Bacon, who once famously said of his gloomy paintings that he’d “never learned to paint a smile.” Volaine hopes that his images of Radha and Krishna will bring a smile to viewers’ faces.
Carmela Lagansere-digesting/re-directing, 2006mixed media
Multi-media artist and ceramist Carmela Laganse exhibits her work at the Kamloops Art Gallery for the first time in this playful installation of small sculpture. Working with rubber, upholstery, two-dimensional images (drawings and/or photographs), and text, Laganse attempts to make sense of her own “fragmented memory” in a way that emulates a young child’s amalgamation of experience through games and make-believe. Interactive and tactile, these new works continue Laganse’s ongoing investigation of the role of toys in the development of identity and language. Carmela Laganse is an instructor in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Thompson Rivers University. She has a BFA from the University of Manitoba and an MFA from Ohio State University. Her work has been shown in exhibitions across Canada, in Spain, and in the USA.
Works in Gallery Under Glass are available for purchase through The Gallery Store.
It doesn't matter where you live—in the city, suburbs or the country—the beauty of wild birds can be seen everywhere. The KAG has asked local celebrities to decorate 30 birdhouses built by members of the Daybreak Rotary Club for a silent auction in support of KAG programs. Place a bid on your favourite birdhouse and hopefully take home the birdhouse of your choice. Give a bird a home, a beautifully decorated one, and support the KAG! Presented by Kamloops Art Gallery, Daybreak Rotary Club, and City of Kamloops.
Lisa Klapstockyellow armchair, 2000from the Living Room seriesC-print
Lisa Klapstock is an internationally recognized emerging artist who lives and works in Toronto but was born and raised in Kamloops. liminal is the artist's first solo exhibition in her hometown.
Klapstock, who has a Communications degree from Simon Fraser University and a diploma in Sight and Sound Film Production from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, is interested in the mechanisms of seeing and the role of the camera in affecting and challenging the way we see and experience our surroundings. Her photo-based artworks are both richly colourful and rigorously intellectual, exploring issues ranging from abstraction and realism to the relationship between photographic depiction and visual perception. Her recent work, including a photographic diptych portraying the unique landscape of Kamloops, is concerned with spatial relationships, particularly relating to the figure in space and to the delineation of public and private spaces within the city. Her work focuses on everyday places and their human occupation—overlooked spaces that are somewhat unfamiliar and marginally inhabited, but nevertheless imprinted with the "residue" of human presence. By revealing the "invisible", Lisa Klapstock's work draws attention to the act of looking and seeing.
Lisa Klapstock has exhibited her work in Canada, the U.S.A. and Europe, including shows at The Centre for Photography, New York; Gallery TPW, Toronto; Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver; Centre Vu, Québec; The Odense Photo Triennial and Gallerie Image, Denmark; and TENT, The Netherlands. Her work is in private, corporate, and public collections in Canada and Europe, including the Art Gallery of Windsor, the Bibliothèque National de France, and the Kamloops Art Gallery. The catalogue accompanying the exhibition is a collaboration between the Kamloops Art Gallery, the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, and Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery.
An Artist's Talk with Lisa Klapstock takes place on Sunday, April 9 at 1:00 pm. The exhibition catalogue is available in The Gallery Store.
Ernie Kroeger
Glacier Crest, 2001Chromogenic print
For several years, Kamloops-based artist Ernie Kroeger has been following the trails of pine beetles. An experimental photographer, yet devoted to the old-fashioned darkroom, Kroeger uses the darkroom enlarger in untraditional ways. His luminous and colourful photographic images are made from pencil rubbings on paper of beetle paths in pine bark. By placing the rubbings and other found objects directly in the enlarger, Kroeger is able to cast light and enlarge the artifacts onto photosensitive paper to produce large colour prints. Through this process, details that otherwise may go unobserved are illuminated and transformed. The beetle paths, popularly viewed only as signs of destruction, are transformed into a secret script: beetle letters, inscriptions from a bug world not yet deciphered.
Ernie Kroeger is originally from Winnipeg, but has been living in Kamloops for several years, where he is an instructor in the Fine Arts Department at Thompson Rivers University. For over a decade, he taught photography at the Banff Centre for the Arts and the Alberta College of Art and Design. He has shown his photographs extensively throughout Canada and in Europe and his work belongs to several important public collections, including the Art Gallery of Alberta (formerly Edmonton Art Gallery), the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, and the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography.
An Artist's Talk with Ernie Kroeger takes place Sunday, April 23 at 1:00 pm.
Dana NovakThe Seekerphotograph
Artist Dana Novak, who recently relocated to Vancouver after many years living, working and studying in Kamloops, is well known for her sensuous photographs of water, ice, and other natural elements. Frozen Passage is a photo-based installation about ice in which Novak explores the Canadian landscape and culture in relation to her own perspectives developed during her formative years in the Czech Republic. Novak, who holds a B.F.A. from Thompson Rivers University and a B.Sc. from Liberec in the Czech Republic, has exhibited her work widely in Kamloops since 2000, as well as in Comox Valley and Courtenay, B.C. In 2003, she won an Award of Excellence from Photographers' Forum magazine in California.
Elaine Webber
Red Hat Lady, 2005
watercolour
Kamloops Art Gallery is pleased to host Memories and Moments, an exhibition of works by students in the Gallery’s Senior Art Class program.
The exhibition celebrates two years of work by senior art students. Using a variety of mediums, the students have explored numerous subjects, such as landscape, flowers, people, and animals. They have developed skills and techniques by observing light, shadow, line, texture, and colour mixing and have completed amazing paintings. Memories of loved ones, cherished places, and happy times have infused these works with humour, tenderness, nostalgia, and bliss.
Carl SkeltonCanadiana/Twister ('91 550SX), 1996auto body filler, urethane foam, metal, plasticKamloops Art Gallery Collection 2000-118
The City of Kamloops and the Kamloops Art Gallery, working in collaboration, installed a new public sculpture along the city’s Rivers Trail. Spanky and Twister are two life-size sculptures of beavers, with a twist—pun intended. The work of well-known Canadian sculptor Carl Skelton, Spanky and Twister boast some interesting technological enhancements: Spanky’s tail is a long, slender paddle, and Twister’s is a propeller. They make a delightful addition to Kamloops’ most popular park, which the KAG hopes will soon become a destination for public art lovers.
To celebrate the installation of Spanky and Twister along the Rivers Trail, the Gallery has decided to re-exhibit Canadiana/Spanky and Canadiana/Twister (both 1996), which provided the inspiration for Skelton’s specially made, cast aluminium pieces gracing the park. These two sculptures, which are in the Permanent Collection of the Kamloops Art Gallery, are made of auto body filler, urethane foam, and cherry wood, metal and plastic, and are therefore unsuitable for outdoor display. These two beavers have a bronze-like sheen that contrasts with the sleek monochrome grey of their aluminium counterparts. Through this exhibition in Gallery Under Glass, the KAG invites all viewers to compare the two sets of beavers by taking a leisurely stroll along the Rivers Trail.
Poster for the 2001 Kamloops Cowboy Festival, with art by Ginny Green Carr
The Kamloops Cowboy Festival celebrates its 10th Anniversary in March 2006. To mark this achievement, the Kamloops Art Gallery hosts A Decade of Cowboy Art in The Cube, a retrospective of the art and artists who have contributed to the Kamloops Cowboy Festival’s posters over the years. These include Ben Crane, Rob Dinwoodie, Ginny Green Carr, Anita Klein, Wendy Liddle and Arnold Mosley. The 10th Kamloops Cowboy Festival runs March 10 to 12, 2006.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (London 1828-1882 Birchington-on-Sea, Kent)The Roseleaf, 1870two types of graphite on wove paperCourtesy National Gallery of Canada
“…contains masterpieces…”
British Drawings from the National Gallery of Canada features 70 of the finest watercolours and drawings from the collections of the National Gallery of Canada. This exhibition was on display at the National Gallery in the fall of 2005 and begins its national tour in Kamloops. British Drawings marks the first time that a Kamloops institution has been able to showcase rare works by such British Masters as William Hogarth, Benjamin West, Thomas Gainsborough, J.M.W. Turner, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Charles Rennie Macintosh and Henry Moore.
British Drawings covers the period from the early 18th to the mid-20th centuries. Highlights include watercolour masterpieces of the Golden Age (1750-1850), major works of the Pre-Raphaelites, and seminal drawings and designs from the early Modernists. The exhibition provides an opportunity for visitors to the Kamloops Art Gallery to study first-hand the techniques, styles, and subjects of some of the greatest artists of the past three centuries.
The National Gallery’s collection of British drawings is one of the finest in North America, and has been intensively developed by scholars and notable donors for over seventy years. The Kamloops Art Gallery’s presentation of the exhibition reveals the beauty of the collection and celebrates our shared inheritance of British art, which has been so carefully preserved and researched by the National Gallery.
A catalogue of the exhibition is available at The Gallery Store. Related programs for this exhibition include a Special Curator’s Tour with Dr. David Franklin of the National Gallery of Canada on Sunday, January 22 at 1:00 pm; Tour & Tea on Sunday, February 5, 19, March 5 and 19 at 1:30 pm; Masters Drawing Workshop with Ann Kipling on Saturday, March 4, 10:00 am to 3:00 pm; and Panel Discussion on Drawing Today—The State of the Art with Ann Kipling, Laura Hargrave, and Clark Park on Sunday, March 12 at 1:00 pm. See the Calendar fof Events for details. Pre-registration required for some programs.
Installing the water screen of Rebecca Belmore’s Fountain for the 2005 Venice Biennale
In the summer of 2005 the Kamloops Art Gallery and the Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery at the University of British Columbia organized an exhibition of work by Vancouver artist Rebecca Belmore for the 2005 Venice Biennale of Visual Art. The KAG and the Belkin Gallery’s proposal of Belmore as the Biennale candidate was selected in a nationwide competition to represent Canadian visual arts at the event.
"Rebecca Belmore has produced work of great power and grace," said Jann Bailey and Scott Watson, directors of KAG and Belkin, respectively. "Almost always based in performance, her installation works and photographs have a spare, exacting sense of form and presence. Her concerns centre on history, memory and justice. The Venice Biennale is one of the most prestigious international art exhibitions of contemporary art in the world, and we are very proud to represent Canada on this world stage."
In conjunction with a talk by Thompson Rivers University faculty member Eileen Leier, the Gallery is mounting a series of photographs in the Open Gallery to highlight the activities in Venice.
Matthew Tremblay
Cantharellus infundibuliformis
etching
Emerging Kamloops artist Matthew Tremblay has a BFA from Thompson Rivers University and a background in archaeology. In Mycosockology (a play on ”mycology,” the study of mushrooms and fungus), he combines his interests in science and art in a humorous study of socks. Tremblay has previously exhibited his work at the UCC/TRU gallery, at various locations around Kamloops, and in the Mini-Print International exhibition in Cades, Spain.
Kim Clarke Photography Copyright © 2012, Kamloops Art Gallery. All Rights Reserved. Powered by SiteCMTM— web content management made easy by ideaLEVER Solutions.
View Cart Site Map[ + ]