Art Beat
Several new art exhibitions open all over Lethbridge this week.
Artists are generally perceived as carrying a lot of baggage, both literally and figuratively, so with that in mind, a group of local artists, the Potemkin Collective, is using ‘Baggage’ as the theme for their new exhibit opening up on Saturday in the three southern facing store fronts of the old Paramount Theatre building downtown.
“Baggage is reflected in how much baggage you carry with you, both physically and socially, specifically how you transfer works and store them,” observed Potemkin Collective member Darcy Logan, preparing to accept an unknown number of submissions at the Bowman Art Gallery.
He said artists could take whatever angle they wanted as long as they included luggage as part of the piece.
“The only stipulation was was that baggage had to be part of the work,” he said adding he is expecting between 15-30 artists to participate in the exhibition.
“We have no idea what will be coming until we actually receive them. We just put the word out before Christmas,” he said.
“But we’ll have some interesting work,” he said adding the Potemkin Collective welcomes any artists to contribute to their shows.
They also like using abandoned spaces, such as the Ruin and Reclamation show which took place last May in the abandoned Leo Singer clothing store.
This time artist Rick Gillis talked to the owners of the building.
“They were more than willing to let us use the space,” he continued, adding he is still working on his piece for the exhibit.
“I’m still working on mine. It’s a collaboration with Robert Bechtel. It’s a steamer trunk with peephole in it which looks bigger on the inside because there are mirrors,” he enthused.
The opening reception is March 13 from 7-11 p.m. in the new ground floor office spaces. It will also be open March 18-20 from 1-4 p.m.
That is only one of several exhibits premiering this weekend.
also on Saturday, the Southern Alberta Art Gallery opens two exhibits. Nanna Debois Buhl’s ‘Looking for Donkeys’ and Brendan Tang’s ‘Manga Ormolu’ run from March 13-April 25.
A couple interesting new exhibitions opened over the past weekend, March 6. At the Bowman Art Gallery, a decent crowd made some ‘Connections’ during opening night with some unique textile art by artists Cathy Tomm and Dawna Dey Harrish and Sharon Willas Rubliak. A lot of the pieces involved designs of hands and gloves not only on several of the quilts, but also standing alone on a pedestal.
One of Darcy Logan’s Naglfar pieces and poetry embossed next to it was included in the exhibition, which included a variety of different mediums including sculpture, painting, poetry and a display of black and white photographs. The exhibition, Metamorphoses, includes the works of 22 different artists and poets who collaborated to combine art with poetry or random words.
