Everything (and everyone) under the sun

Democracy is alive and well at the Visual Arts Studio Association. Not only is the population of the artist citizens ever on the rise but also they all have their chance to contribute to the new exhibit, provocatively called Wet Paint.

That’s good for the artists. It’s even better for art lovers, both the familiar crowd and the novices too.

“I think that these group shows are great because what they do is they offer people who come into the gallery the opportunity to see something from everybody within the organization,” began Rick Rogers, one of the 20 or so lucky ‘artists in residence’.

The total membership list is inching ever so close to finally hitting the 100 mark, and that doesn’t leave enough room for everyone to have a studio on-site.

It also doesn’t leave much space on the walls for all of those members to display their works. That’s why they can only have two pieces each, and they’re all considered small – nothing over 1.2 metres on any side. Most of them are well below the guidelines too and the work is presented salon style, meaning your knees will get a bit of a workout as you bend up and down to view the full selection.

Wet Paint is like a show of all hands. It’s the second of two shows that are held every year for the membership and the membership only. There’s no jury, no theme and only those few rules.

“We have quite a number of them,” Rogers continued, seemingly referring to both the number of members and the catalogue of works on display. “It creates a lot more variety to look at and it’s two pieces per person maximum. We get a huge variety as a result. It’s surprising how many really strong works there are from the whole organization.”

It’s impossible to describe everything adequately so it’s probably best to simply say that you have to see it for yourself. As with all such group shows, there is something for everyone of every taste.

Also, you’ll recognize about as many names as you don’t. For every Victoria Armstrong, there’s a Betty Dean. Heather Howard gets as much prominence as Jean Leebody, the relative newcomer who has two strong watercolours, one of which is the appetite-stimulating Fries and Beer.

Sirkka Kadatz has encaustic works. Muhammad Salayi displays his fine Impressionistic talents. Leonard Simpson has some unique enhanced digital prints that look like landscapes blurred horizontally. Janice Peters brings two paintings of acrylic marbling on maps or text documents, both on a theme of combat training instructions.

Frank van Veen called it a kind of free-for-all where you get the best and broadest sampling of what VASA and its members have to offer. “The work speaks for itself,” he said.

“People have a chance to see what we do here but not just in the studio setting. It’s more than what we do in the studio. It gives us a chance to show who we are. We are who we are as artists and this is our chance to show who we are in a show setting.”

Consider this then their show of shows. Van Veen said that it’s more than just an exhibit.

“You could say it’s almost like a celebration where we get to strut our stuff without all the constraints of a jury and you need so many pieces … it’s a party and everybody comes out in their finery.”