8 minute read
Summer 2016 - Discovery Gallery
June 18 - July 23, 2016
Carrying On
Bags, pouches & other containers by Alberta Aboriginal artists
The exhibition Carrying On is a new project and opportunity for Aboriginal artists and the Alberta Craft Council. Edmonton, Calgary and other Alberta cities have rapidly growing urban aboriginal populations and burgeoning indigenous cultural scenes. In such an electric atmosphere of aboriginal culture awareness, reconciliation, revival and fluorescence, what of the traditional or contemporary craft arts practices? With this exhibition, the ACC has begun the search for the carriers and containers of new Aboriginal culture; celebrating Aboriginal craft artists, dancers, designers, and others engaged in the making of traditional, contemporary or interdisciplinary objects.
Carrying On includes a spectrum of Aboriginal artists at all stages of their artistic careers. A few are currently students, others are teachers eager to pass on traditional knowledge. They are building on their rich cultural heritage, expressing a new blending of traditional and contemporary cultural energy.
As a result of Carrying On new relationships are already forming. In addition to this being Albertine Crow Shoe’s first exhibition at the ACC, she is now consigning her jewellery in the ACC Gallery Shop. Albertine’s pieces in Carrying On are her interpretation of her family’s signature parfleche (bag) graphics.
Sharon Rose Kootenay is a longtime member and has exhibited her work many times at the ACC. As a Métis Cree artist and teacher, the beadwork she produces has roots in traditional native women’s artistic practice.
Amber Weasel Head is currently studying at Portage College in Lac La Biche. She is Blackfoot (Kainai) and Bitter Root Salish. Amber’s art reflects her understanding of her cultures and her connections to her ancestors. Her works include beadwork, painting, mixed media, film making, performance and digital arts. View work by Amber and other participating artists by visiting the online exhibition on the ACC website.
Participating artists: Amber Weasel Head, Melissa-Jo Belcourt Moses, Albertine Crow Shoe, Jamie John-Kehewin, Sharon Rose Kootenay, Morgwn Martin, Kathleen McIntyre, Ben Moses
June 18 - July 23, 2016
Get Lost
Ruth-Anne French
Get Lost is about having an experience without a guidebook. It is about wanting to reclaim and reconstruct an outcome and at the same time venture off into the unknown. It is about accepting the idea that devastation and ruin are built into human development. And lastly it is about possibilities.
The medium of clay lends itself well to molding and building. Visual and visceral experiences of working with clay can be turned into unexpected and extraordinary shapes and colours. The ceramic vessels in this series are constructed using molds, extruded parts and thrown methods. They are a mix of design elements encountered in the urban landscape; numbers, colour, line, ornament and sometimes wreckage and decay decorate the surfaces.
Since leaving Emily Carr College in Vancouver in 2002, I have been preoccupied with the urban structure of the city. Architecture, space, memory and emotion inspire my perceptions and glossy buildings, slick or deteriorated facades, blank doorways, concrete pathways and the jumble of different constructions inform my process. – Ruth-Anne French
Ruth-Anne French (Edmonton) is a practicing artist working in ceramics. She follows the studio pottery tradition to produce series of architectural sculptures, vessels and public interventions. She is interested in architecture, design and the social and semiotic aspects of the built environment. Ruth-Anne has shown her work across Canada and engages in ongoing collaborations and exhibitions. Ruth-Anne was born in Windsor, Ontario and raised in Edmonton. She earned a BFA Transfer Degree from Red Deer College (2000), a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design (2002), and an MFA from the University of Regina (2004). She is currently the Fine Art Program Coordinator for the City Arts Centre, City of Edmonton and a Pottery Instructor at the Art Gallery of St. Albert.
July 30 - September 3, 2016
Small Works: Paper & Cloth
Margie Davidson
In June 2015, through the Alberta Craft Council, I had the opportunity to be a homestay host for two paper artists from Wonju, Korea. Edmonton and Wonju have a cooperative cities agreement, and the Korean artists were visiting to celebrate Craft Year 2015.
While the Korean artists were visiting Edmonton, I presented a workshop and shared my love of sunprinting, the technique I use to print images on fabric with textile paint. I attended two workshops presented by the Korean artists in which I discovered the pleasure of working with the hand-made Korean Hanji papers. I began wondering … “What if I tried the sunprinting technique on the Hanji papers?” So I tried it, and the results were fabulous!
The idea for this exhibition Small Works: Paper & Cloth was born out of my longing to combine my sunprinted fabric and the sunprinted Hanji papers as a way to physically create a remembrance of this cultural exchange experience.
As a host I was gifted with two small masks in a shadow box frame from one of the artists who stayed at my house. The gift inspired the format of these small works.
By spending time with the Korean artists, I saw Edmonton through new eyes. With a new bike and a newly retired husband, I explored the city and collected different leaves on my bike rides. Twelve different leaves from twelve different locations around Edmonton are represented in this exhibition. - Margie Davidson
Margie Davidson is a textile artist based in Edmonton who works with a variety of textile processes in cloth. Her love of colour and the changing colours of the seasons are joyfully expressed through the fabrics she paints and the artworks she creates. Her award winning art quilts have been exhibited in Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States.
September 10 - October 15, 2016
Transformation – Hooked Sculptures
Rachelle LeBlanc
As an artist distinctly attuned to surface, and whose process explores the possibilities of the rug hooking medium, it comes as no surprise that Rachelle LeBlanc has been working on a series of 3D sculptures. With her new exhibition, Transformation – Hooked Sculptures, she introduces us to her unique exploration of mixed materials and forms.
In this exhibition, Rachelle explores how storytelling, thought, imagination, and emotions are manifested externally on the figurative form. All fourteen figures are made by hand with handdyed linen and woollen fabrics. Other elements that are also created by Rachelle include butterflies, milking benches, chests and beds. Hand-built in red-earthenware clay, these forms incorporate multiple layers of underglazes, stains and slips to achieve depth of color and explore mark-making.
Storytelling connects us to one another and helps explain who we are. When we are displaced, we carry our traditions, memories and history with us and try to recreate what has been left behind to define a new sense of belonging. Physical and emotional displacement can compose the essential elements of human existence. Events such as birth, growth, emotion, aspiration, conflict and mortality are part of who we are and can help tell our story. Rachelle’s work draws on this storytelling narrative that is motivated by an outward expression of inward thoughts and emotions. It bears bold narratives of human experiences and explores themes of birth, death, and renewal.
Rachelle LeBlanc (St. Albert) is a textile artist whose work explores the shifting paradigms of people and place through narrative figures, landscapes and sculpture. Influenced by the radical reshaping of the rural landscape she grew up in, she investigates how our lives are affected by our experiences, surroundings and the connections we form with other people, friends and family.
Her work has been exhibited internationally in numerous group and solo shows. Recently, Rachelle participated in group and solo shows at Yeiser Art Center in Paducah, Kentucky, The Gallery, University of Connecticut in Stamford, The Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, Art Gallery of Regina, Art Gallery of St. Albert, University of Winnipeg Gallery and the Alberta Craft Council.
