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METRO GALLERY: Kicking Tires

The featured exhibit runs April 1 – 30, 2023 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.⁠

 

Artist Reception: April 8 at 2PM.⁠

 

Artist: Beth Pederson

 

Artist Statement:

 

 

The phrase kicking tires or kicking the tires is derived from the automobile industry and generally means to assess the quality of something before buying it. For this exhibition, the title references my interest in observation of mechanical objects from the past and in some cases their history in pop culture.

 

I am drawn to these everyday objects of the past for their aesthetics: simplicity of form, colour, and character. I enjoy painting machines like farm tractors because they are painted with fun, bright colours that make them pop out in their surroundings, and farmers can often identify a brand of a tractor by the colour they are painted. The tractor also represents an era where mechanical objects were less complicated and easier to repair by their owners, providing farmers with greater independence.

 

In the case of the Ford Pinto, I was interested in the story of how a simple adjustment of the mechanical design of the car could have easily prevented the horrific accidents that the car became known for in 1970’s pop culture. The painting that I developed from the story of the Pinto, reflects a bright orange, popular in the 1970s and a drawing schematic that shows how the safety of the car could be improved by moving the fuel tank.

 

These paintings are a continuation of my exploration of identifying beauty in everyday objects and their place in society’s past.

 

 

Beth Pederson began her studies in Fine Art at MacEwan University where she earned a Fine Arts Diploma. Determined to continue her studies, Beth transferred to NSCAD University (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design) where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2003. Since graduating from NSCAD, Beth has continued to work as a practicing artist and has exhibited predominantly in the Edmonton area. She has participated in a several group shows in Edmonton and St. Albert, at both commercial galleries and artist-run-centres. Her work is in many private collections in Alberta and is also in the public collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

METRO GALLERY: Insalata Mista

The featured exhibit runs March 1 – 31, 2023 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.⁠

Artist Reception: March 10 at 5:30PM.⁠

 

Artist: Jimmy Golden

 

Artist Statement:

Making art is a curious and often wonderful occupation. It can also be frustrating and infuriating, but all in all it does make for an interesting life. It can engage the deep belly of the soul, and aid in the self discovery that is inherent in the creative process. In my earliest years at elementary school, I spent so much time and energy drawing in the margins of my scribblers that my teachers took note. They called my parents to suggest that I enrol in Saturday morning art classes at the Art Gallery of Edmonton which was in a house on 105th Street at the time. I took to it like a duck to water, attending Saturday morning classes for many years. My education and most of the work that I have done has always been meant to enhance my art, and ultimately my enjoyment and the quality of life. Enjoying and delving into the infinite fascination of “the chemistry of colour” and the observation of the natural rhythms of Nature has been at the core of my entire life, and practice.

 

Our local universe is filled with an unending pageant of form and colour that I have always used as source material for my art. The myriad variations of animate life provide me with more than ample inspiration to reflect the infinite wonder that we are witness to in this finite existence. I have long been drawn to the ancient Chinese philosophy called Taoism. It is based on the observation of the natural opposites that comprise this world and indeed our lives. Life is created when these opposites meet and dance. In almost all art, there are both positive and negative spaces. The empty, or negative, spaces are of the same importance as the solid, or positive spaces. Their value is identical. Yin equals Yang. “Insalata Mista” is Italian for “mixed salad”. The paintings that I present here are indeed a mixed bag of my response to living here in this amazing world. There is always something new to witness and experience, amidst all that is old and familiar to us. For me, making art has always been a personal reflection of the mystery and majesty that we are all heir to.

METRO GALLERY: Technically Foul

The featured exhibit runs February 1 – 28, 2023 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.⁠

 

Artist Reception: February 4 at 4:30PM.⁠

 

Artist Statement:

This is a collection of photographs and artwork from over the past two years. The photographs are of basketball hoops from around Edmonton. I’m very interested in the various energies possessed by hoops, as well as their iconic presence and ubiquity on planet Earth. The collection was influenced by lo-fi idealism and sports.

 

Bradley J. Sime is a multi-disciplinary artist from Edmonton. This is the first exhibit of his work. The continuing photographic documentation of hoops from Edmonton can be followed via @edmontonhoops on Instagram.

 

METRO GALLERY: Shadows of the Neutral

The featured exhibit runs January 1-31, 2023 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.

 

Artist Reception: December 11 @ 5:30PM

 

Artist Statement:

I focus on colour relationships that evolve from an external inspiration to a meditative landscape, open to chance and change.

 

 

 

A colourist by nature, David Shkolny has been an active artist for over 30 years, finding inspiration in the magic Albertan landscape. A frequent instructor both locally and abroad, his studio is located on the second floor of the downtown farmers market in Edmonton. IG @daveshko

METRO GALLERY: Karl Paltunnil’s Apology To You

The featured exhibit runs December 1-31, 2022 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.

 

Artist Reception: December 17 @ 5PM

 

Artist Statement:

My name is Jason Dublanko, and I create experimental painting and collage in the city of Edmonton. I like art that is innocent and unpretentious, deeply personal, and striking in colour and form. I sometimes use found objects such as wood boards or shelves and apply acrylic paint, drawn doodles, and ripped pages of writing with glue. I try not to spend any money on art supplies. My process is playful and unsure, loosely based on principles of young imagination, stream of conscious thought, luck, and deformed instinct. I think my role as an artist is a manic need to obsessively construct a private and personal vision and make it public, subverting any and all static and unapologetic norms.

 

Karl Paltunnil’s: Apology to You is a therapeutic experiment in spontaneity, and a constrained use of limited time and limited resources. This work has mostly been done in the last three weeks of November (2022), and has felt like a battle I can almost win. I still have nine days left upon writing this – and I hope to complete the six abstract paintings I am including in the show. I will display them even if they are a disaster. I thank you for listening to my story, and I hope you enjoy my art 🙂

METRO GALLERY: Wild Rose Country – Alberta’s Liminal Spaces

The featured exhibit runs November 1-30, 2022 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.

 

Artist Reception: November 24 @ 5PM

 

Artist Statement:

This project broadly serves as a document of the types of architecture and design that occupy the landscape of Alberta, as well as the many communities that populate it. The images are a monograph of life in Alberta and also a reflection of the artist’s relationship with the spaces around him – seemingly unremarkable on the surface yet romantic and outside of the ordinary.

Owen Armstrong is a British-born multi-disciplinary artist whose photographic work explores a range of subjects including erotica, portraiture, architecture, industry, community, and travel. Visit oarmstrong.com to view his work.

METRO GALLERY: Golden Girls

The featured exhibit runs October 1-31, 2022 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.

 

Artist Reception: October 21 @ 5PM

 

Artist Statement:

“Looking into my personal mythology, I create and reflect on an ongoing, non-linear narrative inspired by memories and dreams of the landscape where I grew up, and by the immediate process of mark-making. This series of 14 drawings explores a mix of painting and drawing media, with playful use of colours such as hot pink and gold. I focused on depicting strong female forms in bright, dream-like clothing woven into real and imagined landscapes, hoping to evoke feelings of optimism, fun, and connection.”

 

Lisa Rezansoff comes from a sunny place in southern British Columbia, surrounded by rivers, lakes, mountains and forests. In 2011 Lisa received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Alberta, where her focus was on Drawing, Printmaking and Painting. She then completed an 8 month studio residency at SNAP (Society of Northern Alberta Print Artists). Lisa’s work has been exhibited in various locations including Cafe Mosaics, Artery, SNAP, Latitude 53, Stollery Gallery, Edmonton City Hall, Jackson Power building, and the Grand Forks Art Gallery. She has done Illustration for Unlimited magazine, and her drawings have been featured numerous times in Notebook magazine. Lisa currently lives and works in Edmonton.

METRO GALLERY: Never Before Seen and Here Before Your Eyes

The featured exhibit runs September 1-30, 2022 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.

 

Artist Reception: September 16 @ 5PM

 

Artist Statement
“In making new art, I was trying to end up with artwork I hadn’t seen before. These pieces on paper started out as being based on atypical reference photos. Once I was comfortable with that translation to paper, I set sights on resolving each picture by further additions of line, colour, and fill-ins. However comfortably successful or ultimately unsuccessful these may be to look at, they’re what became of each blank paper as the permanent marks were made. Similarly, the animations you can view here were made in a way where edits could only be made along the way from beginning to end because of the process I liked working through. The end of each animation left me with captured frames for a video along with any remaining physical parts along the way, or a working surface that wasn’t worked all the way to disintegrated paper.”

 

 

Jordan Rule made art within no focused chosen discipline while in art school in Grande Prairie and Lethbridge. After graduation he felt happy with subject matter through film photography, but has always still missed making artworks in the physical way he once did. It’s true animating preserved that to a degree, however these artworks here show him trying to find that again.

 

METRO GALLERY: The Everlasting Journey

The featured exhibit runs August 1-31, 2022 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.

 

Paula Sommers has had a lifelong love for art. Her paintings are abstract impressions of places, people, or ideas created with lush splashes of color and playful brushwork. Sommers’ particular style opens a dialogue with the viewer, suggesting ideas and features through color and form, yet leaving interpretation open to her audience. Born in Calgary, Sommers is wonderfully adept at absorbing the feeling of a place and then recreating in her very personal artistic language. “Celebrate life, humans, the marks people make on the world, and our community. Treasure the local, the eccentric, the ordinary; whatever is made from caring. Respect what people have built for themselves and given away. Find the beauty in some battered old wall, give it new life, share color and joy with the world while it stands still.” Sommers lives and works in Alberta, Canada.

METRO GALLERY: twig salad, mountain soup. 

The featured exhibit runs July 1-31, 2022 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.

 

Artist Statement
Lisi and Gwen’s joint art installation is the centre of the exhibit, which also features some new pieces their parents have created responding to their lines, subject matter, materials and process.

 

Gwendolyn Turner, Annalisa Hartfeil-Richards & Co., or Lisi and Gwen, are friends and their parents make art, music, film, and culture as their primary occupation. Lisi is a 4-year-old who creates maps and bug drawings as well as papier-mache witches and egg salad sandwiches. Gwen is 3 and interested in drawing snakes, sidewalks and monsters.

 

Young artists join parents in Metro Gallery showing – The Edmonton Journal