The Esplanade Arts and Heritage Centre is exhibiting local artists in on-street windows as part of the Arts Travelling Exhibition.--SUBMITTED PHOTO
lthomson@medicinehatnews.com
If we can’t go inside to see the art, the Esplanade will bring it outside to the people.
The Esplanade Arts and Heritage Centre along with the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling Exhibition (TREX) program announces a new project in Medicine Hat. The Tumbleweed Project Space will use a series of windows visible from outside the Esplanade, along Fourth Street and Second Avenue.
“We saw this as an under-utilized space that we could use better and give people new things to look at since there are so many people that drive and walk by there,” said Sierra Zukowski, a recent Medicine Hat College graduate in visual communications and assistant for TREX South East. “In springtime and during COVID is a great time to get it started. The space will only feature artists and groups from Medicine Hat, or that have really strong ties to Medicine Hat, so it really will be a local thing.”
TREX was established more than 40 years ago and aims to make art more approachable and accessible for all Albertans with travelling exhibitions, which can be booked and shown in any public space.
In January, TREX had an open call wanting to connect with artists in the southeast and received several applicants from Medicine Hat. The front runner for the new space at the Esplanade was drawn from this group.
The first exhibition to fill this unique space is well-known Medicine Hat artist Evelyn Kleis’s assemblage sculptures in a collection called “Cosmic Curiosities.”
Kleis, who began painting at a young age with her artist mother, continues to grow and expand and take inspiration from things around her. She has collected old toys, board games, folk art and spiritual pieces from her travels around the world as well as local antique and thrift stores, and uses various pieces and props to create assemblage sculptures.
“They take time, but they’re very contemplative,” said Kleis. “I also play with the dimension of time not being separated.” This particular theme can be seen in the traditional nativity with a helicopter on the roof of the stable or the motorboats trailing behind Noah’s Ark.
“Her work is a collection of smaller assemblage sculptures and they’re very eye catching because you can focus in on all the different characters that are from different universes that are all together in her sculptures,” said Geneveive Farrell, program manager and curator for TREX South East.
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, which explores the afterlife in three parts – Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise – has also influenced this body of work.
“I had done two or three of them and they were all very nice and pretty,” Kleis said. “And one day I bought a bag of figurines and it had superheroes but also the mean guys, the ugly guys – and I thought to myself, ‘Oh my gosh, yeah, the world isn’t all beautiful with golden cities and cats playing fiddles.’ So that’s where I went off to the underworld and the more bizarre things.”
Farrell says the Esplanade felt this project was important.
“The Esplanade has really been thinking about how to bring art to people now that things have been closed again. They’re rethinking programming and really wanting to connect with the local community, to make sure that the artistic community here is feeling supported and getting the recognition that they deserve. There is such a creative talent in the city.”
The space is available to view day or night.
“You don’t have to be intimidated to walk into a huge building if you don’t want to,” said Farrell. “We want the work we put in there to be colourful and active.”
The outdoor exhibition runs along the facade of the building on Fourth Street and Second Avenue and Kleis’s work will be on display from May 19 to Aug. 18, after which a different display will take its place.
