Eye on the Esplanade: Home and away — from local to national at the Esplanade Art Gallery

By Medicine Hat News on November 23, 2018.

As I look back at the year’s art exhibitions at the Esplanade, I marvel at the diversity and high level of accomplishment that “local” artists have displayed in their presentations here. I always wish there was more time in the gallery’s calendar, since I know there are many artists in Medicine Hat eagerly awaiting their opportunity to show their work here. It can sometimes take years for that to happen, since each exhibition is presented for 6-8 weeks, with two weeks in between for installation and de-installing. In keeping with the Art Gallery’s mandate to act as a doorway between Medicine Hat and the world, that means there’s almost always a local artist’s work being presented, alongside the work of artists from around the country, and sometimes beyond.

Some readers may remember Calgary and French Pyrenees-based Dianne Bos’ evocative pinhole camera images of First World War sites in The Sleeping Green, presented at the same time as local photographer Wes Bell’s soulful black and white images in On the Line (both Dianne and Wes using analogue cameras and processing, rather than digital). In this case “local” is international, since Wes returned home to Medicine Hat to focus on his artistic practice after a successful career in New York, London and Milan as a fashion photographer.

School Art 2018, as always, featured brilliant, whimsical and playful works by more than 800 local children and youth, an amazing smorgasbord of paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, photographs and digital animation that delighted the senses. This year’s feast was accompanied by Elaine Freedman’s direct and telling portraits of women, both local and from around the world. In the late summer, striking works from the Esplanade’s collection by local painter Joan van Belkum graced the walls alongside Visions of the Hunt. With a range of unusual and arresting works by, among others, Alberta’s acclaimed Illingworth Kerr, Indigenous Alberta artists Richelle and Brittney Bear Hat, the exhibition also featured a charming portrait of local artist (and hunter) Donna Maclean by Joan’s husband, Koos van Belkum.

Most recently, Medicine Hat College instructor Yulin Wang presented his meditative, colourful paintings of Chinese porcelain and bronze antiquities, Boya Haogu: Time, Space, Legacy, alongside the compelling, huge carved works in wood and delicate prints of Edmonton’s Sean Caulfield — both Wang and Caulfield being internationally exhibiting artists.

The final presentations of 2018, opening Friday Nov. 30 at 7 p.m., will be a lovely culmination of this theme. Guest-curated by Medicine Hat artist/educator Deborah Forbes, overandunderandoverandunder … features the tapestries of Governor General award-winner Jane Kidd (formerly of Calgary and instructor at Alberta College of Art + Design), Ann Newdigate (Canadian by way of South Africa, based on Hornby Island), and Murray Gibson (named a Master Artisan by Craft Nova Scotia). Complementing this national exhibition will be Connected by Long Threads, by Medicine Hat weavers Marlene Hubbard, Carmen McBride, Phyllis Netolitzky, Katherine Rankin and Susan Siegle. Their unique, large-scale collaborative installation will feature a hands-on, participatory element with weaving samples and loom, to offer sensory, accessible experiences for all. Perhaps some new artists will emerge from a chance moment at a small loom at their “local” gallery.

Joanne Marion is director/curator of Art at the Esplanade.

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