3 minute read
Feature Gallery - Landmarks
Alberta Craft Feature Gallery - Edmonton
LANDMARKS
Julia Reimer, Tyler Rock and Katherine Russell
Landmarks is an examination of the prairie landscape from multiple perspectives. As artists who have lived and worked in rural western Canada and the Australian outback, Julia Reimer, Tyler Rock and Katherine Russell noticed commonalities between the two landscapes. Both places are sources of inspiration for the artists, both being landscapes replete with texture and unique instance and character of light.
Julia Reimer’s (Black Diamond) series of work examines shapes and occurences in nature that are awe inspiring. Quiet moments of reflection inspire Julia’s work, an expression of her reverence for nature. The series encourages the viewer to appreciate the every day miracle of life unfolding before our eyes. Using texture and the delicate character of glass and its ability to transform light, her work highlights the mysterious potent spaces that host life.
After first studying glass blowing at the Alberta College of Art and Design (ACAD), Julia has continued her studies in Scotland, the United States, Spain, France, Australia, and in Hungary where she acquired a knowledge of design and traditional European glass making techniques. Her original design and meticulous craftsmanship have earned her recognition and several awards and scholarships.
Tyler Rock (Black Diamond) was raised near the lakes and rivers of northern Saskatchewan and in the Mojave Desert in California. In these wildernesses, he has always been drawn to the edge where the meadow meets forest or where water meets land. These transitional between spaces are the most fertile, full of wildlife and possibility. Similarly contained in the concept of the edge are ideas about limits and connections, boundaries and frontiers and the line between thought and action. The pieces featured in Landmarks represent some of the treasures that can be found in these edges and his love of wilds places.
Tyler is one of Canada’s premier glass artists. His work has received recognition from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Alberta College of Art and Design and the Canada Council for the Arts. He has been selected as “Artist in Residence” at the Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York. Tyler is an instructor for both the glass program at ACAD and the Corning Museum of Glass.
Katherine Russell (Elkford, BC) saw the Australian outback the slow way. She travelled through it by train for three days straight in an upright seat with nothing to block her view of the horizon. She hiked hundreds of kilometres through the outback. To hear it referred to as “empty land” perplexes to her, and her challenge is to prove otherwise. When she travels between her home in Elkford to Black Diamond she sees Alberta’s Foothills through a similar lens. Her work in this exhibition is an exploration of these spaces, some for the clues to their stories and some purely for their wonder and magnificence.
Katherine has a kiln studio and coldshop in Elkford and blows glass out of Firebrand Glass Studio in Black Diamond. Katherine Russell earned her BFA from ACAD as a Glass Major and went on to further her training in Black Diamond, then Perth, Australia for several years. Internationaly she has exhibited, attended glass conferences and taken master glass courses.
Visit: www.albertacraft.ab.ca/
