It has been a long time coming — The Potemkin Art Gallery officially opens Saturday night, Nov. 10 with an exhibit of all of the artists who contributed their time, energy and resources to giving the Lethbridge artists group a home.
“It’s been eight months in the making and a lot of volunteer’s contributions, ” observed Rick Gillis looking at the almost completed project.
“Lots of people put a lot of time and resources, so we’re extremely pleased with the outcome,” he continued.
“It‘s far nicer than anything we’ve had. We’ve usually had to make do with spaces we’ve fixed up for shows,” Gillis said.
He noted the new gallery will be a place for artists with more experimental works which don’t fit in at the other galleries in Lethbridge or Southern Alberta.
The gallery will be open to any artist who wants to put up a display of art or performance art, not just Potemkin members.
There are two rooms in the 
approximately 1,000 foot gallery space, which has new paint, drywall, flooring and lighting all of which was donated by local businesses.
“It really has a nice, intimate feel to it,” Gillis described.
Gillis noted the first show features the works of all of the artists who donated art for their fundraisers and even physical work and time. There are between 30-35 pieces including sculpture, painting and a lot more.
“It represents a good cross section of Lethbridge’s art community,” Gillis said adding they’d like to have four or five shows a year in the gallery, though it will also be open for shorter, performance art shows.
The opening reception for the show begins at 8 p.m. and runs until whenever people leave, which is usually around 11 p.m
There will be refreshments and snacks available and a few surprises.
After you have enjoyed the opening reception, stop by downstairs at the Owl Acoustic Lounge for MUsic in Motion.
Local band Treeline will be performing.
If you look on the back wall, formerly occupied by zombies, you will see a selection of some of my favourite music in motion photos from the past couple years. You may have seen them in my online arts and entertainment magazine, L.A. Beat www.labeat.ca or in the Lethbridge Sun Times.
“Music In Motion” is the result of art by necessity. In that the photos are time delayed shots of musicians shot in poorly lit venues. I try to avoid blasting musicians with flash and try to capture the essence of their show combined with the natural lighting on stage as dim as it is.
The photos have been minimally adjusted through Photoshop, capturing musical moments as they happened. I expanded on a happy accident a few years ago when I took a photo of Calgary based world music group Cumako and noticed I captured a fascinating moving light effect with a slightly longer shutter speed, and yet kept the subject in focus.
I expanded that concept on a few larger 3-D pieces, featuring paint splashing to convey additional movement of the music.
These were were inspired by Detroit painter Marcus Glenn, who created a series of Picassoesque pieces inspired by jazz music and jazz musicians. He not only incorporated paint splashing, but also created three-dimensional portions of the pictures. I decided to explore the concept through some of my photographs.
The paint splashes and dots were inspired by the music itself as each one including Shaela Miller, Nazareth, The F-Holes and Greg Rekus were created while simultaneously listening to recordings of their music and splashing along in time to the rhythm.
The show at the Potemkin Gallery will run through the Christmas season. Music in Motion runs until Dec. 9.
