It’s been 50 great years for the Department of Art and Design at the University of Alberta. What better way to cap off a half-century of excellence in art and teaching than by putting on a series of exhibitions, the first of which opens tomorrow?
Art & design 1.0 features the work of contract academic staff who teach in a variety of disciplines, including art and design visual fundamentals, industrial design, visual communication design, painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing and intermedia.
They’re also considered to be practicing creatives. They teach art and they make art, making this a rare and wonderful opportunity to explore the wealth of talented teachers who are helping to mould and guide the next generation of artists, not to mention foster a prosperous culture in general.
“The overall health of our local arts ecosystem is linked to support for all the arts events, organizations and creative individuals within our community,” said Cezary Gajewsky, the chair of the Department of Art and Design, in a prepared statement.
The list of exhibiting artists includes St. Albert’s Brenda Kim Christiansen and Brad Necyk. The entirety of the show runs the gamut from sculpture to painting to multimedia creations.
For his part, multimedia artist Necyk “appropriated” some images of abandoned pools from the Internet, along with pictures of people engaged in various activities not necessarily relevant to pools, and combined them to create new works. He found those settings to be immensely fascinating because of how they speak about what went wrong.
“Something had to fail. Something happened. Money was around. People were around. There was some sort of system that was functioning, some sort of social order. I posited that it’s like a site of revolt.”
He then took these new digital images and put each in the centre of mirrors with ornate frames.
“The people around the work are reflected into the mirror and brought into the field of the image itself. These swimming pool images hover around the rest of the room essentially.”
Art & design 1.0 is on now and runs until Dec. 20. An opening reception will take place tomorrow evening from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. The full list of exhibiting artists includes Judy Armstrong, Paul Berhardt, Nika Blasser, Shoko Cesar, Alysha Creighton, Brenda Kim Christiansen, Scott Cumberland, April Dean, Nick Dobson, Joseph Doherty, Megan Hahn, Jill Ho-You, Kelly Johner, Jeffrey Johnston, Michelle Lavoie, Eleanor Lazare, Royden Mills, Brad Necyk, Ali Nickerson, Greig Rasmussen, Daryl Rydman, Kim Sala, Jesse Sherburne, Robin Smith-Peck, Lisa Turner, Tad Warszynski, Caitlin Wells, Gillian Willans, Rob Willms, and Kevin Zak.
FAB Gallery is located at 11 Fine Arts Building on the University of Alberta main campus.
After Dec. 20, the exhibit will close for a holiday break, resuming again from Jan. 6 to 10. The exhibition is open to the public. Admission is free.
To learn more about the event or the faculty, visit www.artdesign.ualberta.ca. For the full schedule of University of Alberta art shows, see www.ualberta.ca/artshows.
