Kevin Schmidt

Central Gallery
October 3 to December 31, 2015

Curated by Charo Neville

This exhibition presents a survey of work by Canadian artist Kevin Schmidt. It charts key projects over the past decade and brings them together for the first time. Schmidt’s work engages in a critical restaging of spectacle through the reproduction of cultural industry and strategies of displacement, often into “wilderness” or “natural” settings. The reading of his work is tied to the place of its making and exhibition, self-reflexively exposing the conditions of production and display. Works are often situated in remote locations, where Schmidt stages events through the relocation of common features of the urban environment (billboard, block-buster film, rock-show lights) into untouched areas. Through this cross-over Schmidt interrogates notions of the sublime, the idea of varied “publics” and shared bodies of knowledge. The notion of “the commons” has consistently been an underlying focus of Schmidt’s work.

Lea Bucknell

The Cube
September 18 to October 31, 2015

Curated by Craig Willms, Assistant Curator, Kamloops Art Gallery

In her solo exhibition Inherit, Revise, Repeat, Lea Bucknell’s new body of work observes, dissects and recognizes people's attachment to place. Bucknell explores two modes of memory most often associated with creating a sense of place. The first mode relates to stories told about a place. These are often informal and personal accounts that get passed from one generation to the next in order to build a picture of shared histories. The second mode is a form of symbolic heritage, one that relies on mnemonic triggers to initiate meaning. These consist of more formal or official records of a place, such as monuments, architecture, symbols and objects that represent stories or figures from the past. They are used to imprint a specific telling of history on a place. Using both personal history and community research, Bucknell creates a selection of images, texts and sculptures that investigate connections people have to Kamloops in an attempt to understand what makes this city distinct.

Andrew Hood

The Cube
July 27 to September 5, 2015

Curated by Craig Willms, Assistant Curator, Kamloops Art Gallery

This year's Curator’s Choice is the eleventh annual exhibition of work by a student graduating from Thompson Rivers University (TRU). Selected by Kamloops Art Gallery Assistant Curator Craig Willms, Curator’s Choice annually highlights talent from TRU’s Bachelor of Fine Arts graduating class and gives emerging artists an opportunity to create new work for a professional exhibition space. This year artists were invited to propose a project for The Cube that expands on their art practice outside the context of school.

Elizabeth Nutaraluk Aulatjut // Rebecca Belmore // Hannah Claus // Wally Dion // Phil Gray // Maggie Groat // Maureen Gruben // Gabrielle Hill // Merritt Johnson // Ursula Johnson // Brian Jungen // Bev Koski // Mike MacDonald // Amy Malbeuf // Divya Mehra // Peter Morin // Nadia Myre // Jeneen Frei Njootli // Wendy Red Star // Charlene Vickers

Central Gallery
June 27 to September 12, 2015

Curated by Kamloops Art Gallery, Canada Council Aboriginal Curator in Residence, Tania Willard

CUSTOM MADE / Tsitslem te stem te ck'ultens-kuc focuses on artists referencing skills-based artistic production within a contemporary and transformative context. The exhibition explores the ways in which artists are manipulating, transposing and re-learning skills-based arts like beadwork and basketry and how they are relating these skills to cultural heritage, new materials, concepts and techniques. CUSTOM MADE frames a dialogue between artists whose works cross boundaries, challenging and conflating binaries of art and craft, both contemporary and traditional.

Central Gallery
June 27 to September 12, 2015

Curated by CAUSA / Collective for Advanced and Unified Studies in the Visual Arts

Prior to disruptive contact with colonial educators, the First Peoples of North America did not distinguish between craft and fine art. Traditionally, expressions of material and spiritual culture were grounded and conjoined in a concentric network of relationships that fluently linked language to place – place to placement – and placement to purpose. In this context, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company completed its transcontinental line in 1885. From Banff, Alberta to Kamloops, British Columbia (and onwards from Kamloops to Vancouver), the railway would subsequently connect each of the Interior and Coast Salish territories.

Jen Aitken // Hadley+Maxwell // Kelly Lycan // Mark Neufeld // Derek Sullivan

Central Gallery
March 28 to June 13, 2015

Curated by Charo Neville

“The story of objects asserting themselves as things, then, is the story of a changed relation to the human subject and thus the story of how the thing really names less an object than a particular subject-object relation. And, yet, the word things holds within it a more audacious ambiguity.”

Colin Lyons

The Cube
March 28 to June 13, 2015

Curated by Craig Willms, Assistant Curator, Kamloops Art Gallery

Colin Lyons’ recent work fuses printmaking, sculpture and chemical experiments, pushing the role of the etching plate beyond its traditional boundaries as a re-enactment of the rise and fall of industrial economies. He explores industry through the lens of fragility and impermanence, considering planned obsolescence and the nature of what we choose to preserve. Lyons adapts etching plates and uses acid to create batteries that reclaim decaying industrial parts. Once restored, the surfaces are coated with a resist material. The artist then traces over the restored surfaces, submerging them in a bath of etching acid. The results create a contour map that marks the traces of decay.

Michael Markowsky

The Cube
January 17 to March 21, 2015

Curated by Craig Willms, Assistant Curator, Kamloops Art Gallery

Michael Markowsky’s practice combines painting and performance. He typically draws and paints while riding inside or on top of moving cars, buses, boats, trains, airplanes and even dogsleds. In July 2013, Markowsky made 100 postcard-sized drawings while flying faster than the speed of sound in a Royal Canadian Air Force CF-18 “Hornet” jet plane. The opportunity came about because of his involvement in the Canadian Forces Artists Program. Past participating artists in this program include members of the Group of Seven, David Milne, Charles Comfort and Alexander Colville.

Pam Hall

Central Gallery
January 17 to March 14, 2015

Curated by Dr. Melinda Pinfold

Pam Hall is an interdisciplinary artist working across and sometimes in between the boundaries of medium and discipline. She makes visual art, constructs installations, works with language and is engaged in film, video and, most recently, performance. She works alone (inside and outside of her studios) and collaborates with others (sometimes individuals, sometimes communities). Based in St. John’s, Newfoundland, she travels extensively to pursue the creation and presentation of her work. She also teaches graduate students in the United States. Her work has been shown throughout Canada and internationally.