Coming to a gallery near you: A Sense of Place

Criminally Vain by Nikki Treber

By David F. Rooney

The Revelstoke Visual Arts Centre is inaugurating its 2012 exhition season with an interesting show of about 40 paintings, sculptures and drawings based on the catch-all theme A Sense of Place.

Cancelled: a private showing and sale of works by painter Nicola McGarry who is preparing to head off to art school where she plans to hone her already-formidable artistic skills.

A Sense of Place, which runs April 13 – May 4, is the opening show of what promises to be a busy and exciting regular exhibition season for Revelstoke’s growing arts community. May 11 – June 1, The Centre will feature Bryn Stevenson’s show, Light and Beauty of Landscapes, in the Main Galleries, with Sandra Flood’s ceramics show, Fragments, in Side Galleries 1 and 2, and the an exhibition of recent works by the Golden Girls in Side Gallery 3.

June 8 until July 6 will see the Columbia Basin Community Art Project in the Main Gallery. Coreen Tucker’s solo show, Behind the Mask, will entice patrons to Side Gallery 1 while Dawn Thrasher’s Upward Bound will occupy Side Galleries 2 and 3. July 13 – August 3 will see the Main Gallery filled to the brim with the Forests show celebrating 100 years of the BC Forest Service. This show is open to artists in all media. For more information contact The Centre’s executive director, Jacqueline Pendergast, at 250-814-0261 or by e-mail at info@revelstokevisualarts.com. All three Side Galleries will be filled with works in the Wide Open Spaces show by members Tina Lindegaard, Nicola McGarry, Gwen Lips, Cherie Van Overbeke, Val Speer and Aran McCormick.

August 10 – September 7 The Centre will be offering up its annual Midsummer Art Fair. September 14 – October 5, jennifer Hedge will fill the Main Gallery with her one-woman show The Landscape Reflected, while Rachel Kelly will offer up her Recent Works in Side Gallery 1. Anything Goes 3D will draw patrons to Side Gallery 2 and Peter Blackmore will enthral viewers with his show, Fabulous Light. October 12 – November 2, the highly talented Chloe Juwon Kim will offer her exhibition, My Revelstoke: Four Seasons of Beauty. Barbara Maye’s show, The Subtle Body, will occupy Side Gallery 1 and an exhibit from the Golden Art Gallery, The Bugaboos, will fill Side Galleries 2 and 3.

As the exhibition season draws to a close, participating artists will fill the Main Gallery with their contributions to Up Close! Flora and Fauna of Mount Revelstoke, November 9 – December 1. The Best of Banff’s Mountain Photography Show will fill Side Galleries 1 and 2 and Teria Davies’ Deviant Abstractions will occupy Side Gallery 3.

The season will close, as it always does with the Gifts from the Gallery Show December 7 – 11.

On another note, our community’s artistic activity will soon be in the spotlight at the important State of the ART exhibition in Whistler, which opens this Friday (April 13),  during the Telus Work Ski and Snowboard Festival. The artists who participated in the 2011 Art in the Park project, which was sponsored by Parks Canada, will be featured. They include local photographer Natalie Harris, painters Shelley Ross of Kaslo, James Webb of Victoria, Leanne Spanza of Kelowna and Glenn Clark of Penticton, and photographer Yuichi Takasaka of Lumby.

Here are some of the images and objects you’ll see when a Sense of Place opens this Friday, April 16, at 6 pm:

Evolution by Tina Baffaro
Waiting for Cake by Julie Kozek
Travel Mugs by Jacquie Palmer
Spring in Yorkshire, England by Eve Fisher
A Bit of the Rockies by Ken Sakamoto and original jewellery by Toni Johnston
Sculpture by Pat Anderson