A small selection of works from our collection is installed in the Green Space as the main Gallery remains under construction. The exhibition offers visitors a chance to see works from the collection that have rarely been exhibited, with an emphasis on the diversity of artistic practices that are preserved in our collection.

Peacework will be on view as long as construction permits.

Learn more about the permanent collection.

Dare to imagine! Try to conceive of a kind of art that is an exercise in controlled unpredictability. Such is the work of Eric Cameron. His Thick Paintings are produced by laboriously applying coat after coat of gesso to objects that become transformed beyond recognition in the process. As he continues to add more coats, the Thick Paintings continue to be transformed in ways that continue to take him by surprise. Any semblance of resolution is fleeting and impermanent. It is doubtful if the work can ever truly be said to be “finished”, though inevitably the artist’s work on it will, one day, come to an end.

Cameron’s earlier Process Paintings were produced by applying paint through grids of Sellotape, (an English equivalent to Scotch Tape). Regular checkerboards might be anticipated, but the tape could never be made to run precisely straight, so all the irregularities creep in, creating a more dynamic visual structure. These works reveal some kinship with both Minimalism and Op Art, which were prevalent at the time they were made. Between Process Painting and Thick Paintings, Cameron made some simple videotapes that manipulate the video process in a variety of ways.

Eric Cameron was born and educated in England but has lived most of his life in Canada. Currently, he is a professor of art at the University of Calgary. He has published extensively and his work has been exhibited widely both nationally and internationally.

This Exhibit provides a glimpse into the art Eric Cameron has produced in the course of a long and intriguing career. It includes six of his smaller Thick Paintings, two Process Paintings and a short videotape.

Location: Grande Prairie Public Library, 9839-103 Avenue

Shortly before he died, Plenty Coups, the last great Chief of the Crow Nation, told his story — up to a certain point. “When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground,” he said, “and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened.”1

Ernest Thompson Seton, naturalist, just after the turn of the century determined to estimate the number of bison in North America pre-contact; he undertook a rigorous process of mathematics, logic and comparisons to domestic animals living on the plains. “Seton figured there were 75million buffalo in North America before the white man arrived”2

This group of 25 drawings are both realistic representations and imagined petroglyph styled stories of the great bison saga of North America. The realistic representations come from photos of bison that Adrian has taken over the years, the petroglyph styled drawings come from his research into historical petroglyphs that have been reimagined, or the creation of contemporary mythologies.

This series of drawings seeks to demonstrate both the discipline of drawing and the layered meanings in drawn stories. The historical slaughter of the bison was a part of the decimation of First Nations in the Americas, a deliberate and brutal attempt to destroy not only the bison but also the people who relied on the bison for sustenance. Yet both have survived and live to relate their ongoing story.

Adrian’s desire in creating this series is to honour the memory of the bison and its resilience. To study and promote its return to the territories it once dominated. The history of the bison is analogous to his Blackfoot being, and for Adrian, in our time, the bison remain a source of inspiration, imagination and life.

1 Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation, Jonathan Lear internet – http://www.powells.com/biblio/0-9780674023291-0

2 Dary, David A. The Buffalo Book, Swallow Press Ohio University Press 1989 pg.29

In this exhibition, which is composed of works created by members of the Prairie Art Gallery, and chosen for exhibition entirely by the individual creators of the work with no interference whatsoever from the Gallery, we are proud to show a snapshot of some of the most current and active production of visual culture by artists at all levels of their careers working in this region. The Prairie Art gallery believes that art is among the most important components of a society, and as such that the art made in our community is an important component of our community. The works in this exhibition are as diverse and eclectic as the individual artists who have made them, and we hope they represent much of the diversity of the community. Yet each work, being of this place, should resonate both with the place of its creation and with the other works of art created in that place. The harmony that emerges from this range of voices is in itself a way of understanding Grande Prairie and the Peace Region.

The members’ exhibition has been a long and proud tradition for the Prairie Art Gallery and its members, and like all of the Gallery’s important programs, the members’ exhibition will be transformed by the growth of the organization that is currently underway. This exhibition is a sign that there will always be a place in the Prairie Art Gallery for unmitigated contact between artists practising in this region and the public audience, but it is also a milestone in that this is the final members’ only exhibition that will be held by the Prairie Art Gallery for the foreseeable future. It is our goal to reduce barriers between artists, art, and the audience, and as such, future exhibitions of this type will be open to all creators in the community, and no longer restricted to members.

We thank all of the artists who have so generously loaned their works to this exhibition, and we also thank the City of Grande Prairie and the Heritage Discovery Centre for the loan of this space in our time of need.

 
Heritage Discovery Centre
11330 – 106 Street
Phone: 780-532-5790

The Heritage Discovery Centre is located in the lower level of Centre 2000, the home of Grande Prairie’s Visitor Information Centre. Centre 2000 is situated on the Highway 43 Bypass at 11330 – 106 Street in Grande Prairie.  Our family-friendly hands-on experience officially opened in 2004.  Permanent exhibits showcasing the natural and social history of the Peace Country from prehistoric times to the present interactive displays for the whole family.

Hours:
Monday - Friday                 8:30 am to 4:30 pm 
Saturday & Sunday            10:00 am to 4:30 pm 

FREE admission if you’re only viewing the Prairie Art Gallery exhibition.

View a 3:31 minute video by the Edmonton Journal to hear the artist speak about the exhibition of AutoPark during the 2010 The Works Art & Design Festival in Edmonton, Alberta.  Watch the video.  Learn more about The Works Art & Design Festival.

A temporary installation of AutoPark will be on view in Grande Prairie at the Street Performers Festival July 23 – 25, 2010 and will continue through the summer and fall at the the Prairie Art Gallery/Montrose Cultural Centre location.

AutoPark located at the Prairie Art Gallery, Montrose Cultural Centre

The Prairie Art Gallery presents the theme of animals in art as enrichment for our children’s summer programs. All the artworks by Alberta artists are selected from our permanent collection, with the exception of the interactive mural display commissioned by local artist Tim Heimdal. An animal cave was the inspiration behind this interactive display, which is located in The Green Space, for all to enjoy.

The study of animals in art provides many challenges for artists, as they need to depict them as a still form. Some artists choose to portray them in their natural environment, whereas others capture them as symbolic icons as seen by Native artists. All of the works are a representational style of art in a variety of media.

The subject of animals captures our hearts and attention by looking at the lighter side of life, or perhaps a wilder side of life. The animals chosen in this exhibit are either domesticated or wild, but all are commonly found in our region. Tim Heimdal’s mural offers us a glimpse of animals in other lands for a more global perspective of living creatures. Tim Heimdal has a playful approach to animal anatomy by showing us an insiders perspective of they study of living creatures. This piece is titled ‘C.A.T. Scan’ which is a play on words for the x-ray imagery.

C.A.T. Scan, mural by Tim Heimdal in The Green Space at The Prairie Art Gallery

Canadians have an identity, one to be proud of.  HERS is a portrait exhibition and the paintings are all women and all artists.  In their honour, 32 large-scale portraits of contemporary, innovative Canadian women in the arts.  The artists’ goal is to depict each of these women expressing their passion in their respective art forms.

The moving sight of about 100 cribs and cradles lined up in orderly fashion in The Prairie Art Gallery will summon up memories of hospitals, orphanages, dormitories, schoolrooms, cemeteries—images that telescope the cycle of life: birth, life and death.

Le Jardin du sommeil (1998) is a remarkable installation by Canadian artist Spring Hurlbut.  It was acquired by the Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal in 2009, and is currently travelling to other galleries.  The work evokes both childhood and the loss of childhood.  It is made up of 140 antique, found, metal cribs and cradles, simply and soberly arranged in rows.  The discreet presence of a few ceramic funeral wreaths at the beginning of the journey through this “garden of sleep” introduces the idea of a memorial, a notion heightened by the walkways that wrap around it.

Spring Hurlbut was born in 1952 in Toronto, where she lives and works.  Since the late seventies, she has developed a painstaking, intimate art that employs strategies from architecture and museology to guide us through the labyrinth of the human psyche.  Variously reappropriating artifacts, colour illustrations and taxidermy specimens, the artist picks out objects that represent archetypes of the life cycle.  For Le Jardin du sommeil, Hurlbut, a passionate collector, sought out and found 140 different examples of metal cribs and cradles from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.  The geometric layout of the installation and the lining up of the motifs recall the structure of a garden, and the accumulation of objects, that of a cabinet of curiosities.  At once similar and unique, the beds symbolically express the individual yet universal nature of the human destiny.

This exhibition is part of the MOMENTUM series, a touring project from the Collection of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.  The MOMENTUM series has been made possible with the financial support of the Department of the Canadian Heritage through its Museums Assistance Program. 

Cette exposition s’inscrit dans le cadre de la série MOMENTUM, un projet de circulation de the Collection of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.  La série MOMENTUM a été rendue possible grâce à l’appui financier du ministère du Patrimoine canadien par le biais du Programme d’aide aux musées.

Interpretive Guide to the Exhibition

Learn more about Le Jardin du sommeil and watch the interview with Spring Hurlbut.

This portrait exhibition earnestly captures the spirit and unique perspective of Peace Country elders whom the artist has had the pleasure of interviewing and photographing. To honour the many character’s individual life stories, every oil painting reveals a senior’s favourite colour, animal, vegetable, and inspirational quote, as well as how many children he or she has. It was once said, “The best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.” Enfield’s intent is to help pass this wisdom along.

Exhibition Opening: January 8, 2010 at 7:00 pm

Montreal artist Jean Pierre Gauthier has been active on the contemporary art scene since the mid-1990s, when he quickly gained recognition for the inventiveness of his work. The kinetic installations that have emerged from his exploration of the acoustic and metaphorical potential of the found object combine humour and poetry in a rigorous investigative approach. With an ingenuity seldom seen, they bring together the notions of order and chaos, permanence and fragility, performance and gratuitousness.

This exhibition is organized and circulated by the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, with financial support from the Museums Assistance Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Visit Jean-Pierre Gauthier’s website.

View our Interpretive Guide for the exhibition.