Art off the leash

It’s like the zoo let out, and all the animals ran right into the Art Gallery of St. Albert. It seems like they’re all up to some kind of mischief of one sort or another too.

The new exhibit, Talking Creatures, features a quartet of diverse artists whose works all involve animals of one stripe or another but you’ve never seen them all like this before.

Saskatchewan artist Patrick Bulas has a fun series of mezzotints called The Cat that Slept in a Tortoise Shell. His cat, Lucy, interacts with other members of the animal kingdom in different cat ways but it’s all meant as an allegory for his own life. They’re funny scenes for sure but you must look closely because the prints are awfully dark.

Sculptor Gerri Harden also has some funny and dark work for the crowds. She used artist grade polymer clay and her keen eye for animal anatomy (and sometimes jaw-dropping detail) to devise some rather unusual situations for this, her first series of sculptures.

Her theme is about the inherent vulnerability and frailty of all creatures.

“Everything is posed in a precarious position,” she began. “I want people to feel something for the sculptures.”

As colourful and engaging as they are, one must be cautious.

There are baby birds reaching up out of their nest with beaks agape, hopeful for the worms that wriggle above them. There are elephants draping their longer-than-usual trunks around. Two hands (with snake tails, no less) are propped palms up, holding a runny egg in one and a moth in the other.

In another, a young girl sits on a dock above a body of water, a shark reaching upward out of the briny depths. The position of the great white is not what’s particularly bothersome about the piece. Don’t look too closely at the girl if you have a delicate disposition. It’s what the girl is feeding the creature that makes me stop and wonder what the artist’s intent is.

“I want them to be thought-provoking,” Harden stated. “I want people to wonder what in the world they’re about. Some of the content is a little more disturbing. People say, ‘Is she shocking just for the sake of shocking? Is this sick, twisted stuff?’ I took that into account.”

She insisted that the slightly graphic sculpture is based on a metaphor, a life lesson perhaps, and could still be suitable for younger viewers, if it was appropriately explained. It’s pretty smart, actually.

Then there’s Megan Gnanasihamany who decided to insert herself into a collage of paintings How Could You Think of Your Stomach at a Time like This and a Prairie scene called Oh, Shucks.

“Shucks” refers to the Monty Python-esque sheep-duck hybrids that populate the arrangement. And there’s Gnanasihamany herself, crouched with a floral crown, posed pixie-like amid the odd menagerie.

“I don’t want to romanticize animals or anything. I just think they’re an interesting way of creating characters,” she described, noting that animals are very effective in making even mature art accessible and interesting to a broad age range of audiences.

“I’ve worked with kids at a daycare as my part-time job all throughout my undergraduate degree. I think part of that appealing-to-children aesthetic does influence my work. It’s not made for kids but I think that’s a positive thing if kids can still find it relatable.”

And then there’s Trish Shwart, who takes storytelling with animals to a different level than all the others. The multimedia diorama artist has set up nine scenes that work together to tell a story that is perhaps the most accessible of them all.

“It’s a typical quest story,” she said of Dreamwalkers Journey, being shown for the first time in this exhibit. “This unlikely individual is chosen to save the village from darkness.”

“In my art, I’m really interested in making work that anyone can understand. I don’t want to use ‘artspeak.’ I don’t want to sound like I’m still working at a university. I want the work to appeal to anyone. I tried to think what would be a universal story I could tell, and the quest is an age-old story. I think people have fun looking at them too.”

The displays follow a character named Kai through a series of adventures, pitfalls, confrontations with monsters, and other scenarios. Kai meets and is assisted by a helpful elder guide character as well. It’s all very engaging and yes, accessible and family-friendly.

“I hope adults get something out of it.”