A cornucopia of thought provoking art exhibitions opened around downtown this Saturday.
One of the most interesting ones greets the view upon entering the Bowman Arts Centre — a cabinet of “queer-iosities”
“I am pleased and surprised. We have contributions from a real cross-section of the community both by artists who identify themselves as homosexual and those who identify themselves as heterosexual who wanted to show their support for the issues gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people face,” said Leila Armstrong who wanted to do something in honour of Gay Pride day.
“The Stonewall Riots were June 28, 1969, so that is Gay Pride Day.”
She contributed a drawing of Jo from the Facts of Life, her “girlhood idol.”
“I’ve always been fascinated by those oak cabinets. I really think they’re fabulous. So I thought a ‘cabinet of queeri-osities,’ would be interesting to see,” Armstrong said.
“ There are different sorts of styles. And some people just donated from their personal collections,” she continued.
There are 23 artists involved including submissions from as far away as Montreal and Saskatoon, who contributed a variety of items, ranging from the quirky to stark political commentary. Items include not only art but also items from personal collections like an autographed Team Canada jersey from gold medal winning Olympic hockey player Danielle Goyette, which local artist Sonis McAllister contributed as well as a selection of beavers from Josephine Mills.
McAllister contributed some of the strangest pieces including a bowl made of fur and a child’s dress purported to be worn by Ru Paul as a child. There are a variety of items including woodcuts of Oscar Wilde and Virginia Wolfe, a cheeky pop art style painting of Betty and Veronica from Len Komenac and Rick Gillis’s Teddy, which features a mannequin’s head.
No less heart wrenching is a piece featuring pink badge Germans forced gays to wear during the Second World War, placed on top of a copy of deportation papers.
“Ideally I’d like to make this an an
nual exhibit with different contributions. That would be my dream,” she said.“It‘s important, because I think it raises awareness in the community. There is still a lot of homophobia as well as internalized homophobia, where people feel bad about themselves because of it,” she said.
“It brings all these different groups, transgendered, gays, lesbians all together. It’s just a general celebration,” she continued.
While she was just setting the exhibit up mid last week, she was expecting a variety of other submissions including a collection of somebody’s Ken dolls and other items.
Also at the Bowman are “Shreds of Thread,” a collection of fibre art from local artist Jana Mackenzie which will be in the Music Room. There are several interesting pieces including three dimensional pieces.
There is also an interesting interactive exhibit in the main gallery from Loralee Sand Edwards.
iGallery: curated auto-paparazzi features a variety of self-portraits. A variety of interesting poses of the artist in a bathtub adorn the walls of the Bowman Arts Centre’s main room. Plus attendees will be able to take self portraits of themselves which will be uploaded to a website. A large wooden booth, designed to look like a bathroom has been set up complete a bath tub, toys and a variety of props for people to wear and pose with. The pictures are being
posted to Loralee Sand Edwards’ Facebook page.
Over at the Yates Theatre Waterfield Gallery, artist Bev Mazurick shows how she has been inspired by music.
“It’s a display of abstract art. Each piece is represented by a specific song which she played on a loop while she painted,” described Bowman Arts centre curator Darcy Logan.
“The paintings convey her experiences while listening to the songs,” he continued.
Her works are interesting and full of colour with a sheet next to each one explaining the work and what the artist was exploring in her abstracts. The open night featured a CD of the featured music playing. She included a couple of classical pieces, one which incorporates the sheet music of the piece, plus several jazz pieces, some music from the north including some Kashtin. There is even an obscure Carlos Santana piece.
The works are all colourful with unusual shapes and convey a lot of motion.
The exhbits all run until July 10.
A version of this article appears in the June 1, 2011 edition of the Lethbridge Sun Times
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