With the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Art Curator Ed Varney staged an art event which paralleled the Olympics. For the “Mail Art Olympix” there were three “event” categories. The first “event” was the artist “Self Portrait”, reflecting the diversity of people and cultures. The second event was “Artistamps”, which parallels and parodies official postage stamps. The third event was “Manifestos” giving insights into the concerns, methods and intent of world artists. Submissions from more than 350 artists representing 41 countries were received, much of it in colourfully decorated envelopes. Swift Current artist, David Tuttle participated. Art Gallery of Swift Current is pleased to present this delightful, intriguing exhibition of more than 1000 mail-art artworks from around the world.
Visit artolympix.com
Since 1979, Eric Cameron, an internationally recognized Canadian artist, has covered everyday objects with thousands of coats of gesso or paint. These obsessive, yet minimal, objects have attracted considerable attention and in 2004, Cameron was awarded the Governor General’s Visual Arts Award.
Since 1993, Christopher Gardiner, who lives in Silton, SK, has been producing anxiety containment objects. These beautiful minimal wooden boxes are covered with stretched canvas and tightly stitched and painted seams.
Guest Curator, David Garneau’s written text panels expertly position the work within minimalism and conceptual art, and also reflects the beautiful and private personalities of these two artists.
Presented at Art Gallery of Swift Current in cooperation with Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery.
Twyla is interested in relationships between cultural and natural production, consumption and waste, high and low technology, and biological and mechanical growth. Using wires, cords, and electrical connectors, she imitates plant pods, root systems and human physiological forms, reproducing hybrids of technology and nature that appear to be growing, evolving, reforming... . Exhibition courtesy of OSAC.
A series of drawings by two artists – Sarah Jane Holtom and Brandan Doty. Both artists use a drawing technique called blind contour – where the artist does not look at the drawing they are making, but keep their eye only on their subject. Sarah uses crayon to delicately draw her aging dog. Brandan is drawing a hockey game he is watching on television; keeping his eye on the puck and following its movement with a pencil or oil stick. Exhibition courtesy of OSAC.
This annual invitational exhibition provides an opportunity for patrons to become aware of some of the professional and aspiring professional artists practicing in our region. This exhibition presents a variety of forms including abstraction and referential examples of painting, drawing, sculpture as well as fine craft and design, along with photography and film, and examples of object or image based contemporary artwork.
Summer Party: Public Guided Tour with the Artists, Saturday evening July 16, 7:30 pm
Show closed Victoria Day weekend Sunday, May 22 and Monday, May 23.
Art Gallery of Swift Current is pleased to present this touring exhibition of recent collaborative drawings, prints and photographs by Rhonda Neufeld and Rodney Konopaki. Since 2007, the artists have explored the act and meaning of collaborative art-making through projects which involved sharing, interfering, walking, observing, recording, reflection and dialogue. Underlying Konopaki and Neufeld's collaboration has been a fascination with the collision of conscious aesthetic decisions and 'chance operation', interpreted perhaps most famously by John Cage, but reaching back to Dada and Duchamp.
Public Guided Tour with Curator Kim Houghtaling, Saturday, May 28, 10:30 am
Walk & Talk guided tour with artists, Friday, June 10, 7:30 pm. Free admission. Social to follow: hors d’ oeuvres, cash bar
Show and publication produced through a partnership between Art Gallery of Swift Current, the Medicine Hat Esplanade Art Gallery and Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery.
The artists...
Rhonda Neufeld is a print media artist who is equally comfortable with lithography, relief, intaglio and screen printing. Her primary investigations are in intaglio, although she also works in drawing and installation. She brings a sensitive approach to her prints and installations, which disclose a deep commitment to and love of the land. Her unpretentious and natural approach to making art is rooted in the land of her home near Armstrong, BC and her considerable experience as an apiarist. Her undergraduate degree is from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design and her graduate degree is from the University of Regina. Rhonda has taught at the University of Regina, Thompson Rivers University, Kwantlen University College and Alberta College of Art and Design.
Rodney Konopaki explores print media, painting and drawing to create work that he often grounds in anonymous pop culture. These works usually begin with images taken from historical sources, mass media and even material "stolen" from his friends that all find new meaning in unpredictable collisions with new elements. He has been committed to making art in collaborative ventures for his entire life. Early on he performed nationally as a rock musician with a group that also received commissions from the NFB and the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra. For eleven years, he worked as a Master Printer at Tyler Graphics in New York. His work is included in the collections including the Canada Council Art Bank, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and Saskatchewan Arts Board. He is a faculty member teaching print media at the Emily Carr University of Art & Design.
Artist, glass blower and sculptor, Brad Copping of Apsley, Ontario, spent the summer exploring the waterways of Swift Current and Moose Jaw by canoe and by service road. Out of this experience comes this major installation of glass based artworks. “I have always made work that reaffirms our ties to the natural world; that acknowledges we are part and parcel of that world… I create glass in many different forms to use in my work, but it is most often an attempt to make a reference to water in its various states." – Brad.
AGSC exhibition organized in partnership with Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery.
This exhibition is made possible in part by a grant from the Ontario Arts Council's National and International Touring program.
This exhibition is also supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.
This exhibition is presented at Art Gallery of Swift Current
Courtesy of the Dunlop Art Gallery
Coffeehouse Evening & Artists Tour, Friday, March 4 at 7:30 pm
Public Guided Tour with the Artists, Saturday, March 5 at 10:30 am
Mind the Gap! celebrates, with resounding exuberance, the wealth of talent amongst the diverse population of emerging artists in the province of Saskatchewan. The title, of course, refers to the often misguided moniker that Saskatchewan has recently come to be saddled with – the gap – both in relation to Canada’s consciousness and geo-cultural landscape. The exhibition’s title also quotes the famous automated safety warning on the London tube, “Mind the Gap!” We do mind actually. And the world should mind Saskatchewan.
Mind the Gap! includes artists from cities and towns including Prince Albert, Moose Jaw, Regina, Saskatoon, North Battleford, Lloydminster, La Ronge, North Portal, Swift Current, Canora, Shellbrook and Rockglen. As the co-curators, we travelled along Highways 1, 2,16, 39, and more, from June 2008 to May 2009, through every Saskatchewan weather condition possible (love it or hate it). We met with approximately 70 artists from over 20 communities in order to capture a snapshot of what the province currently has to offer. A multitude of media is represented, including contemporary drawing, collage, comics, painting, sculpture, carving, photography, video, installation, performance art and works that transgress such categories.
Comprehensive and ambitious in scope, this exhibition provides an insight into the trends, innovations, energy and interests evident in the artwork of Saskatchewan’s contemporary artists. Mind the Gap! turns these artists’ various paths toward a moment and place of intersection with the intention of contributing to the discourse about Saskatchewan’s unique art history and its current state of affairs in relation to both local and global developments in the arts.
Mind the Gap! has brought into focus the fact that artists who succeed in Saskatchewan are tenacious, that relationships are crucial for the survival of the province’s artists, and that despite our desire to know each other, we don’t get together quite enough. The artists in this exhibition are spread out over a vast, expansive territory. In this place, renowned for its opens spaces, its vistas and skies, it is easy to feel lost and forgotten.
In our conversations with the artists, ‘gaps’ were uncovered, such as the gaps between rural communities and cities, between artists and broad audiences, between traditional and contemporary practices, between Saskatchewan and the international art world. Ultimately, these gaps are not insurmountable, and artists are finding opportunities for dialogue and creative growth within these apparent interstices.
At the end of this journey, with its long hours spent on the Saskatchewan highways and dirt tracks, driving through rain and snow, past road kill, filling the time with curatorial banter, this exhibition is one of accomplishment for the co-curators, the artists and for the province’s growing communities. Of course, the journey does not end here for Saskatchewan artists. To appropriate from the ‘Welcome to…’ sign for Saskatoon – Saskatchewan shines! Our future is bright.
- Amanda Cachia & Jeff Nye, Co-curators
Dunlop Art Gallery
Artists featured include: Judy Anderson, Lindsay Arnold, Amalie Atkins, Joel Carignan, Marc Courtemanche, Wally Dion, Brandan Doty, Randal Fedje, Clark Ferguson , Rob Froese, Gabriela Garcia Luna, Chris Campbell Gardiner, Erin Gee, Todd Gronsdahl, Laura Hale, Kyle Herranen, Sarah Jane Holtom, Rob Jerome, Sandra Knoss, Adam Lark, Nicholas Louma (of Gull Lake), Mark Lowe, Nancy Lowry, Dakota McFadzean, Judy McNaughton, Jennifer McRorie, Tim Moore, Turner Prize, and Stacia Verigin.
This exhibition is accompanied by a 96-page full-colour catalogue, featuring writing by the co-curators, as well as non-fiction and poetry by Saskatchewan writers Bonnie Dunlop (of Swift Current), Matthew Hall, Alice Kuipers and Carle Steel.
The exhibition was organized and toured by Dunlop Art Gallery with the financial assistance of: The Canada Council for the Arts, Saskatchewan Publishers Group, Regina Public Library, and Saskatchewan Arts Board through a Special Initiatives Grant and the Culture on the Go Program. Culture on the Go touring projects are supported through funding provided to the Saskatchewan Arts Board by the Government of Saskatchewan, through the Ministry of Tourism, Parks, Culture and Sport.
Visit mindthegap.dunlopartgallery.org.
In this exhibition, Canadian artist Russell Yuristy presents a variety of artwork produced between 1971 and 2010, including examples of drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture. Russell Yuristy is formerly of Silton, Saskatchewan and now lives and works in Ottawa, Ontario.
Yuristy well known for his large, light-hearted and imaginative playground sculpture that have delighted children and adults in many communities across Canada, including the well known "Billy Buffalo," for many years was located in Swift Current, Saskatchewan.
A display of archive information and an award winning NFB film about the artwork, “Billy Buffalo,” is available in the reception lobby display window.
This exhibition is organized through a partnership between Art Gallery of Swift Current and the Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery, Curator Heather Smith. A publication about this artist and this exhibition of artwork is available. The Forward to the essays is by Joe Fafard, the essays are written by Anna Babinska, Wayne Morgan and Sharilyn J. Ingram.
Art Gallery of Swift Current and the Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery want to thank the City of Swift Current and the City of Moose Jaw along with the Saskatchewan Arts Board, SaskCulture, SaskLotteries, The Canada Council for the Arts, and Canadian Heritage for their support of this exhibition and publication.
...a kind of abandon
“This summer something magical happened between me and my trees! I lost my objectivity and began ti paint with a kind of abandon. Everything seemed to work, as I drew with large chunks of charcoal salvaged from our wood stove and I put on paint with a trowel, house painters brushes, sponges, rags, my hands, and I used washes, splashes and drips, and I loved every minute of it, thumping a loaded brush onto the canvas, drawing with a full armed gesture, scraping, working wet into wet, thin and thick and even adding stuff like saw-dust and studio floor debris, mixed in with gel medium.”
– Russell Yuristy, unpublished notebook, spring-summer 2000.
...I stand and become
“When I stand in nature...I stand and become just another expression of nature, not any more significant than the grass at my feet or the crow in the branches of a tree above me. There I stand in speechless awe, in time suspended. Then I take my simple tools, sticks of carbon or coloured dirt and try to do a record of THIS. Some nerve, I guess. Still I gotta do it. I gotta point to it.”
– Russell Yuristy, unpublished notes, 2008.
"...art is creating and destroying ...nature does this all the time."
Born and raised on the family farm, isolated in rural Saskatchewan; the grandson of Ukrainian immigrants, Russell learned practical work and survival in constant proximity to nature in all its forms: the surrounding land, tamed and untamed, the cycles of weather, the inevitability of death and rebirth in animal and plant life, the necessity of killing for nourishment. Russell Yuristy links the cycles of nature to the making of art.
About the artist...
Born in 1936 and raised on the family farm in Goodeve, Saskatchewan Russell spent two years at home farming before attending the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. He majored in English and creative writing, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1962. Art classes at University led him to working for a year as a commercial artist before moving to University of Wisconsin in Madison where he graduated in 1967 with a Master of Science in Art. Back in Saskatchewan in 1968 he participated in the Emma Lake Artists' Workshop with Donald Judd and joined the Visual Arts Faculty of University of Regina where he taught until 1971. He then moved to Silton, SK, northwest of Regina, to take up art full time. Russell Yuristy is married to Mayo Graham and pursuing her career they moved to Ottawa in 1985. Yuristy is a well-known printmaker, painter and teacher in Ottawa and Western Canada. He is widely recognized for his large-scale sculptures designed for children's playgrounds throughout Canada and the United States including “Billy Buffalo” located for many years in Swift Current, SK. He has had several other major commissions, including an aluminum sculpture, Switch Hitter installed at Jetform Park in Ottawa. Yuristy’s artwork is in many public collections, national and corporate, including the National Gallery of Canada and the Canada Council Art Bank, Mendel Art Gallery, MacKenzie Art Gallery, McDonald Corporation (Chicago), and Shaklee Corporation (San Francisco). He has exhibited widely across the country and received many awards.
A large group show presenting a variety of recent artworks and craft by SW Saskatchewan semi-professional and amateur artists.
AGSC and SCAAC present the annual Southwest Saskatchewan Open Art Exhibition: The Holiday Show, this year moved to December. This project provides professional development for artists through exhibition experience. Artists take part in critique with art professionals. Artwork is selected for possible inclusion in OSAC provincial tour program.
This exhibition includes 50 pieces of hand-blown glass by Susan Rankin. This respected artist grew up in Moose Jaw as the daughter of a prominent artist, Joan Rankin. It was a culturally enriched and artistic environment, which included summer trips to the Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops where she and her brother Michael, played with the children of the Regina Five and other prominent artists. It was the kind of household with opera on the radio, jazz playing on the stereo, and art books, magazines and materials in abundance.
In the 25 years since attending workshops at the Pilchuck Glass School and studying in Sheridan College’s renowned glass program, she has continually innovated with the medium of glass. Susan Rankin has an uncanny ability to make very intelligent contemporary work with glass that keeps its eye on the history of her medium, but still remains playful, beautiful and smart.
This exhibition is made possible in part by a grant from the Ontario Arts Council's National and International Touring program.
Watchman is a collaborative exhibition of work by Saskatchewan-based artists George Glenn and Myles MacDonald. This installation of 12 paintings and plexi-glass display cases explores the relationship of individuals to the topography which surrounds them. It uses their presence on the landscape along Highway #2, between the City of Prince Albert and Prince Albert National Park, to present a unique, haunting, and even apocalyptic perspective of our time.
This highway facilitates transportation between two ideals of modern life, the city and the national park. The former represents a manifestation of the ideals of democratic, capitalist civilization and the latter represents a manifestation of our ideal views of nature. However, the stretch of marginal land that fills the space between these ideals denies these categories and provides a point of view that exposes the failings of them.
This is the fourth annual Salon, this year moved to summer. This annual exhibition project provides an opportunity for patrons to become aware of some of the artists in our region. This is also an opportunity to view and to purchase artwork by professional and aspiring local professional artists. A portion of proceeds from the sale of artworks will go to support public programming at Art Gallery of Swift Current.
| Participating Artists: | |
| Bob Siemens | Photography: Gelatin silver prints |
| Allan Wiederhold | Carving in Stone |
| Anthea Loran | Watercolour and pen |
| Catherine Macaulay | Watercolour on paper |
| Colleen Watson | Watercolour on paper |
| David Tuttle | Collage with Paper |
| David Woods | Digital image |
| G. Wozny Siemens | Concrete on plywood |
| Grieta Krisjansons | Acrylic on canvas |
| Hedi Gossweiler | Alpaca and silk |
| Hugh Henry | Mixed Media |
| Laureen Marchand | Oil on board |
| Louise Perrin | Mixed media fibre |
| Kent Tate | DVD |
| Marsha Schuld | Acrylic on canvas |
| Mia Tuason | Wool, needle felted |
| Sally Knelsen | Acrylic on canvas |
| Ken Christopher | Watercolour on paper |
| Stephanie Kaduck | Acrylic on canvas |
Solo exhibition by Swift Current artist, Benita Struik.
Transparent gel-transfer images of pioneering women hang from lines strung across the gallery like laundry hung out to dry in the prairie wind. Photographs trigger memories and stories. A multitude of women’s stories are hidden away in memories. During this show, the public is invited to write down their stories and reveal the untold history of Saskatchewan women’s lives.
This exhibition presents a broad selection of visual artwork by High School students of the Chinook School Division. This is a great opportunity for public audiences to enjoy wonderful artworks by inspired young people. It is essential to the future of culture that we provide good quality education in the fine arts.
A glimpse of the art practices and careers of nine young graphic designers originating from Swift Current and area. Brochures, posters, advertising, charity campaigns, books, and signage; this exhibition demonstrates how graphic communications touch us every day, influencing our choices and opinions in subtle ways.
The nine graphic communications designers include
- April Bradley
- Meghan Delnea (Spearing)
- Kim Elkington
- Ryan Stinson
- Brian Ohlmann
- Jordan Wagner
- Charis Slusar
- Andrea Stevenson
- Joanne Schafer (Booth)
An exhibition of work by Campbell Tinning created during a trip to Newfoundland in the summer of 1949. Newfoundland joined confederation earlier that year and Tinning, a young artist fresh from his success as an Official War Artist, was fascinated by Canada's newest province.
Campbell Tinning was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in 1910. He studied art at Regina College and at the Art Students' League in New York. In 1941, he joined the Reserves and obtained permission to paint at the RCAF Base in Trenton, Ontario. This attributed to his appointment as a War Artist in the Historical Section of the Canadian Army in June 1942. After serving as a War Artist, primarily in Italy during 1944/45, he returned to Canada and settled in Montreal. His work was included in numerous group and solo exhibitions and he died in Montreal in 1996.
Just prior to being sent overseas, his first Army assignment was to record the east coast defenses, primarily in Nova Scotia; although late in 1943, he was sent briefly to St. John's, Newfoundland. He was very impressed by this brief visit and wrote in his diary that he wanted to return and paint there in peacetime. In December 1943, Tinning sailed for England, and in April 1944, he was sent to Italy.
Tinning's fascination with Newfoundland was cause for a return trip on his own in 1949. He painted at Port aux Basque in July, and then at Port de Grave in all of August and September. Below is an excerpt from an article he wrote that was published in the Atlantic Guardian (Feb 1950, v. VII, No.2, p 44-46), which refers to this series of watercolours he worked on during the summer:
Newfoundland is a real place, where man and his works are, but where nature has not been spoilt - although there are cities and commerce. I hope in this regard however much the Island prospers she will somehow retain this quality. I believe she will, for Newfoundland is not a frontier to be exploited with boom towns and ugly buildings. Our new province has the advantage of 300 years of living behind her and of seeing the rest of North America go through a period of quick growth.
Thirteen large watercolours in this exhibition were produced during that summer of 1949. They were exhibited in Montreal in 1950 and have remained together as a group - passed on to his niece and nephew after his death in 1996. Also accompanying the exhibition is a self portrait painted in 1939, eleven additional watercolours, representative of Tinning's oeuvre - war art, landscape, a view of his Montreal studio, etc. together with his travel easel and paint box, sketch book from Newfoundland in 1949, and excerpts from his diary.
The full-colour publication, which will accompany the exhibition, will have a curatorial essay by Heather Smith, as well as an essay by Dr. Jeff Webb, a professor at Memorial University.
Courtesy of Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery.
What happens when the avant-garde art of 1920s and '30s USSR meets 21st century Saskatchewan? Saskatoon artist David Geary's poster series, "The Great Saskatchewan Socialist Utopia - That Never Was" is the answer.
Geary's posters are based on the works of Soviet agit-prop posters by artists such as Gustav Klutsis, Aleksandr Rodchenko and Dmitri Moor. He freely adapts design elements from these models, producing an original artwork that incorporates his drawing and painting along with collaged coloured paper and typographical elements. Curated by Dan Ring - This show comes to Art Gallery of Swift Current courtesy of the Mendel Art Gallery of Saskatoon.
This is an exhibition of artworks from the permanent collections of the Art Gallery of Swift Current.
This show will acknowledge the contributions of artists and donors who have graciously gifted their works of art to the Art Gallery of Swift Current for the on going enrichment of cultural life in our community.
The AGSC permanent collections of artwork concentrate on the art history of Swift Current and region. The collections also include examples of artwork from the art history of our province. In all cases the artwork collected celebrates the gifted artists who are part of our history and culture.
Organized by Art Gallery of Swift Current.