Latest Arts News

Local photographer Leonard Heinonen looks at the world a little differently

Tuesday, 22 June 2010 09:18 Richard Amery

Being at the right place at the right time matters more than having a lot of fancy photography equipment according to local photographer Leonard Heinonen, whose first exhibition opens June 25 at the Mueller Art Gallery.

“People tell me I see things a little differently, and not just about photography either,” said Heinonen, Leonard Heinonen is looking forward to a display of his photographs opening JUne 25 at the Mueller Gallery. Photo by Richard Amery getting ready to rush off to the weir in the coulee to take advantage of of a beautiful spring evening to take some pelican pictures.
And he should know, his nature shots has been published on National Geographic’s website, competed in CBC’s Nature of Things annual photo competition and his work has appeared in the Lethbridge Herald and Sun-Times.
And 10 of his favourite works will be on display at the Mueller Gallery, for his very first photographic exhibition beginning June 26, where they will be up for six weeks as part of the exhibition ‘Waterton Light.’ Not bad for a man who has no formal photography training except for one high school photography course. The show opens with a reception, 7-10 p.m., June 25 at the Mueller Gallery.

“It’s about balancing composition and lighting. You either have an eye for it or you don’t. My nephew can draw, but I couldn’t draw if you put a gun to my head,” said Heinonen, who draws a lot of inspiration, not to mention photographs, from hiking around Waterton Park.

As well this weekend, photographer Trudi Lynn Smith opens her own exhibition based on Waterton at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, on June 25. It will be followed by a day long excursion and workshop with her to Waterton on June 27.
Her exhibition ‘finding aid’ features Smith attempting to recreate archival photographs of Waterton Park.
“It is as much about photography as it is about Waterton,” explained Christine Cuthbertson, Southern Alberta Art Gallery public relations and volunteer manager.

“So what she does is try to recreate archival photographs and postcards of Waterton by trying to recreate the location, the lighting and the camera aperture. It‘s a lot of trial and error,” she continued.
“The more she does it the more distant she becomes, realizing how impossible it is to recreate a moment,” she said.

Heinonen knows all about the difficulty of trying to recreate a moment.
One of the photos in the exhibition featuring numerous Canadian Geese on the river surrounded by fog, took a long time and repeated visits to Waterton.
“Those geese bugged me, because I couldn’t get the camera to capture what I saw. I must have taken 400-500 shots of those geese,” he said adding after about a week and a half of frequent visits, the lighting, fog and geese were all in place.

Collages at the U of L

Wednesday, 09 June 2010 17:56 Richard Amery

The University of Lethbridge is examining the art of collage at the Helen Christou Gallery, June 11-Aug. Jane Edmundson. L.A. Beat File photo

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The exhibit, curated by Jane Edmundson, features numerous works from the University of Lethbridge Art Collection. The exhibition explores collage as a both a formative creative process and elevated fine art technique. Artists include Ron Kitaj, Deborah Shackleton, Takao Tanabe, Tony Urquhart and Kim Kozzi of Fast Wurms.
Statement
Edmundson’s artist statement reads: The collage process embodies the ideas of postmodernism more perfectly than perhaps any other in contemporary artmaking. Though the technique is as ancient as paper itself, collage rose to fine art status in the early 20th century when Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque employed it in their Cubist compositions to heighten the visual collision between media and the surface plane of the canvas.
The technique continued to be popular with Dada artists, who created the first photomontages that have since become ubiquitous in our current digital age of Photoshop pastiche. Collage’s sustained popularity with conceptual artists has not been limited to visual media; cinematic montage and the samples and remixes of popular music also demonstrate how this process of appropriated layering is prevalent in our daily lives.”
The artworks chosen for Collage aux folles range from quick sketches to fully realized objects, demonstrating how collage has been utilized as both a formative creative process and elevated fine art technique. While some make use of found objects or re-appropriated print images, others focus on overlapping texture, colour and shape to arrive at a more abstract final product. The postmodern tenets of appropriation, assemblage, fragmentation and pluralism are examined while the artists challenge the hierarchy of what can be deemed fine art.

— Special to L.A. Beat

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Artists ‘Drawn Into Action’ to map southern Alberta

Monday, 31 May 2010 16:30 Richard Amery

This month, the Helen Schuler Nature Centre will be ‘Drawn Into Action,’ to prove that a map can be a beautiful thing. A map doesn’t just have to consist of tiny little lines and static blue, brown and green spaces. A map can be an artistic expression.

Biomapping in action. Photo submitted
So with that in mind, the Centre’s staff are running ‘Drawn Into Action,’ a special program running June 18 and June 19 and July 10.
“This kind of mapping is not mapping in your traditional sense. This is experimental mapping,” said project co-ordinator Laura Piersol.

The program begins June 18 with a half day mapping workshop at the Helen Schuler mapping workshop running from 7-9 p.m. to help explain the concept of of mapping to local artists or anybody else seeking artistic inspiration. Those who sign up will take a bus trip to various inspirational places around Southern Alberta.

It will be followed the next day by a trip in and around Lethbridge (from 10 a.m.-4 p.m.) to examine some of the city’s more distinctive landmarks. There will be a trip down to Waterton Park and the surrounding area from 9 a.m.- 4 p.m. on July 10

“We want to challenge their artistic sensibilities and creative expression,” she continued adding the program is open to artists of all skill levels working in all mediums.

New exhibits examine cowboys, ankles and children

Wednesday, 26 May 2010 11:32 Richard Amery

Darcy Logan is looking forward to three new art exhibitions opening at the Bowman Arts Centre and the Waterfield Gallery, at the Yates Centre, this Saturday.
Darcy Logan prepares ‘Myth of the West’ pictures for display. Photo by Richard Amery

Darcy Logan prepares ‘Myth of the West’ pictures for display. Photo by Richard Amery

Kelaine Devine has a whimsical exhibit of fabric based art called “Embroidering on the Truth — Tales of How I Didn’t Break My Ankle,’ which will be on display in the Bowman Arts Centre’s music room.
“It’s embroidery, drawing and fibre. But it isn’t using traditional mediums, ” said Bowman Arts Centre curator Logan.
“Last year she broke her ankle and it was a trying time for her as she recovered, so she started embroidering all the different ways she could have broken her ankle, but didn’t. It’s fun and fanciful,” Logan described.
In the main gallery, University of Lethbridge alumni Eileen Murray’s ‘The Myth of the West’ explores how western trappings and fashions have become more about style than about practicality.