Local Community Advertising
In the midst of a pandemic that's now been with us for eight long months and a stifling weeklong crush of US wildfire smoke, the Penticton Art Gallery gave us all a break Friday night.
It opened its fall exhibit, right on schedule. Thank goodness for the odd dash of normalcy.
Granted, the crowds were a bit thin, particularly when compared to the non-stop throngs that patronized the Gallery's summer-long Bob Ross smash hit. But given that most out-of-towners have now headed home, that the weather's changing, that the smoke remains thick and the pandemic has taken a slight turn for the worse, that wasn't surprising.
The fall show is a three-piece affair, highlighted in the Main Gallery by "To Talk With Others," a splendidly displayed gathering of works by Yukon artists that focuses on key oil pipeline talks from way back in 1977.
"It's responding to a document -- minutes from a meeting in 1977 with then prime minister Pierre Trudeau and Yukon First Nations leaders," said Mary Bradshaw last night. Bradshaw is the director of Visual Arts at the Yukon Arts Centre, and she made the trip to Penticton for the opening.
"The meeting was about a pipeline that had been approved to run through the Yukon, but ultimately became a discussion about self-determination for First Nations. The pipeline became the motivating spark for self-government.
"These are mostly contemporary First Nations Yukon artists reflecting back on those minutes and how the conversations have changed. It's really interesting that today we have another Prime Minister Trudeau again talking about pipelines going through First Nations lands."
The obvious focal point of To Talk With Others is a life-size pink moose created by Lianne Charlie called "Bull's Eye."
But there's more here than its inherent pink-ness and its colossal dimensions. Bull's Eye's paper maché finish is actually made up of documents from the final agreement, which Bradshaw says "is basically the framework of modern treaties in the Yukon."
Also in the exhibit are a pair of pieces by noted Yukon carver Ken Anderson - a stunning birch and steel mask called "The Mosquito Becomes Me," and, on the floor, a curiosity called "I Wouldn't Want This In My Backyard."
"It's encased by a picket fence, representing the backyard, and there's a black pipe in the middle," said Bradshaw. "The size and shape is that of a grave marker, and in the Tlingit tradition, graves often have picket fences around them."
Debuting with To Talk With Others in the Project Room is a highly adventurous, highly pertinent exhibit entitled "You Are Not Alone."
The Gallery put out a worldwide call to artists, asking them to create and submit works that portrayed their own experience with COVID-19. And the response was phenomenal.
Ultimately, nearly 300 individual pieces came through the door, from every continent on earth except Antarctica. Two hundred are on display at any one time. And they're as varied as the artists who created them.
One of the contributors is Rosanne Bennett of West Kelowna, who spent much of 2020 working at her parents farm. "Farming doesn’t stop," she said with a laugh at the Friday opening.
Bennett held one of two pieces she created for the show, which features a collage from an old-time nursing manual and "fluorescent, emergency-coloured orange paint," and explained that it actually had its beginnings "a few years ago. But I finished it for this show."
Simultaneously in the Toni Onley Gallery is "181 Days and Counting," a series of pointed -- but often funny -- quarantine-related cartoons by ex-Georgia Straight cartoonist Dirk Van Stralen.
"I think the pause and the reflection of what our values are is the road to the future we need to create," said a thoughtful Van Stralen. "Every single one of these cartoons is a reflection of a flag of hope for a picture of the way I think things ought to be versus the way things are."
For Art Gallery president Eric Hanston, who at one point Friday evening stared into a mask while wearing a mask, just getting the show up and running less than a week after the Bob Ross closing exemplified the "dedication and the passion of the people who work here."
"The show is amazing. I'm still speechless on a large part of it. This entire situation has put a lot of people off kilter. This (the pandemic) is something none of us have experienced, so to come down and see this, it kind of grounds you. You really are not alone."
The Penticton Art Gallery fall show runs through to November 7th. Admission is by donation. For more info, go here.
Local Community Advertising