There are several art exhbits opening this weekend.
The Mueller Gallery features a suite of drawings and paintings from Scott Cumberland. Prairie artist Cumberland is “ Saskatchewan bred and modernist fed.”
His works feature
cascading ribbons of colour and he works in a variety of mixed media granular backgrounds. The opening reception is at the mueller Gallery , March 12 at 8 p.m.
The Parlour Gallery also features a new exhibit from local artist Arianna Richardson opening on Saturday. As well she is displaying some of her works at the Univrsity of Lethbridge, niche gallery on level 8 of the Fine Arts Building. The reception for that is today, March 8 at 4:30 p.m.
The Southern Alberta Art Gallery celebrates the life and contribution to the community of artist and retired University of Lethbridge professor and former University of Lethbridge art collection curator, Billy McCarroll, March 12 with a new exhibition providing an overview of his distinguished artistic career.
McCarroll and curator Ryan Doherty whittled down about 130 images going back to 1971 when he moved from California to Lethbridge to teach at the university down to the 60-70 which will be on display throughout the SAAG, on both levels and even in the halls.
“We wanted to choose three or four works to represent all of the stages from my career,” McCarroll said.
“I was attracted to the rough contours and lines. And they are really small images 6x4, so I blew them up,” he said adding he transferred them to an acetate which he put onto an overhead projector, traced the lines, then coloured them in.
“So it was like having a giant colouring book, because they were life sized. Some of these canvasses are huge,” he said adding he hadn‘t expected the golf images to be so popular, but he got a second book “The Nine Bad Shots of Golf,” and before he knew it, his interesting idea, inspired by pop art, turned into a 20 year series.
The March 12 opening begins at 7 p.m. with a discussion panel of Jeffrey Spalding, Peter White and McCarroll who will talk about his work and contributions. The launch will also double as a launch for a new SAAG publication about McCarroll’s works featuring images of the works and essays by Jeffrey Spalding, Peter White and Ryan Doherty.
The panel discussion will be followed by a walk through of the exhibit, which is the result of a solid year’s work and scouring museums and private collections across the country.
“It’s been an enormous project. We’re bringing a lot of the pieces across the country,” Doherty said adding there have been some very generous donations of works from both public and private collections.
If you miss the opening night, there will be an additional walk through during the SAAG’s happy Hour.
Some of McCarroll’s works will also be on display at the University of Lethbridge Helen Christou Gallery from March 4-April 8.
