It’s dark outside. The sun doesn’t rise until nearly 8:30 a.m. and starts to set right after 4 p.m. We’re looking at the darkest time of the year, the days of long shadows and endless night, and the cold, slow approach to the winter solstice when the ebb of the sunlight starts to flow once more.
We’re entering into the Night Hours and I’m not just talking about the season of lustrous and lengthy northern Alberta winter. Night Hours is also the name of the new exhibit at the Art Gallery of St. Albert and it’s more than enough to carry the art lover through to the new year and beyond, well past midnight and on to the other side.
Night Hours features works from 21 Alberta visual artists each with works portraying their versions of the nocturne: night scenes with sparse and deftly employed light. Gallery director Jenny Willson-McGrath said that there are very special paintings straight from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Collection. That’s why she also served as curator for this exhibit, handpicking each one to add the most to the show.
“We spent a bit of time going through the vaults at the AFA and found a few breadcrumbs that would lead us to a pretty cool show!” she announced, noting that the gallery often pairs unteamed artists together to produce joint exhibits. “This would be the biggest collection of artists that I’ve put into one show. And they’re all amazing, some really important artists.”
One of the painters represented in the show is Gordon Harper, a Medicine Hat native who obtained his BFA at the University of Alberta in the mid-1990s. Edmonton seems to have struck a hard nerve of inspiration for his work as he seems to endlessly draw on the capital’s post-war bungalow neighbourhoods and architecture for his urban landscapes.
He waxed poetic about his fondness for the subject matter.
“I started painting nocturnal images when I came to Edmonton. I think that coming from Medicine Hat being plunked into the north, the night sky is very different here. It was this combination of really vivid sky colours especially with the dusk fading so slowly late into the night and these ‘low light pollution’ type of street light that came in during the ’90s, that soft peach colour that’s sadly getting phased out for the more efficient, glaring white lights,” he began.
“At the time, you had this hazy, soft sky and these pools of really warm, really seductive light, and these beautiful shadows everywhere.”
Other featured artists in this exhibition include Daniel Bagan, Paul Bernhardt, Marna Bunnell, James Davies, Neel de Wit-Wibaut, Walter Dexter, Sarah Fuller, Les Graff, Krista Hamilton, Marcia Harris, Ken HouseGo, Lynn Malin, Petra Mala Miller, Garry Newton, Baco Ohama, Bruce Pashak, Helen Sebelius, Nancy Tice, James Trevelyan and Rolf Ungstad.
Night Hours opens tomorrow and is set to enjoy a two-month run until Saturday, Jan. 30, 2016. The opening reception will run Thursday, Dec. 3 from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Several of the artists will be in attendance.
The Art Gallery of St. Albert is located at 19 Perron St. Call 780-460-4310 or visit www.artgallerystalbert.ca for more information.
The Visual Arts Studio Association is opening its doors to have as many of its members on its walls. Well, its members’ paintings, that is.
The Members’ Winter Exhibit is, like Night Hours, a two-month extended show, now featuring the work of approximately one-quarter of the 120-plus membership as can fit in the space.
“It’s going to be fairly eclectic: it’s all the way from portraits, landscapes, abstracts and very imaginative stuff from some of our Goop of Seven members,” offered Miles Constable.
The exhibit will run until Fri., Jan. 29, 2016. An opening reception is set for tomorrow from 6 to 9 p.m. Many artists will be in attendance. The event will also feature a tribute to former VASA head and beloved painter, the late Pat Wagensveld.
VASA is located at 25 Sir Winston Churchill Ave. in the Hemingway Centre. Call 780-460-5990 or visit www.vasa-art.com for more information.
Alberta Collects runs Thursday, Dec. 3 through to Saturday, Feb. 27, 2016. An opening reception will be held tomorrow from 7 to 9:30 p.m.
The Visual Arts Alberta Association Gallery is located on the third floor at 10215 112 St. in Edmonton. Call 780-421-1731 or visit www.visualartsalberta.com for more information.
Please note that the gallery will be closed from Dec. 20 to Jan. 5, 2016.
At the same time, the VAAA will be conducting a unique Cultural Exchange in the front room. The three-month community engagement project is intended as a method of questioning our current economic system by allowing Alberta artists to donate, purchase or exchange core cultural property (including art books, art supplies and equipment, as well as other cultural materials) and also meet, connect with and support other artists in the community. Everyone is invited to participate (by bringing in items not in use as donations or exchange pieces) as the VAAA works to offer a creative meeting place. This unique system means that the inventory of goods will shift constantly, so people are encouraged to return often.
