The Cedar Tavern Singers or  the Phonorealistes aka Mary -Ann McTrowe and Dan Wong have been nominated for the 2010 Sobeys Art Award for Canadian artists under the age of 40.
The Sobey Art Award, Canada’s preeminent award for contemporary Canadian art, was created in 2002 by the Sobey Art Foundation. The annual prize is given to an artist under 40 who has exhibited in a public or commercial art gallery within 18 months of being nominated by prominent members of the art community and professional artists.

A total of $70,000 in prize money is awarded annually; $50,000 to the winner and $5,000 to the other four finalists. Since its inception, the Sobey Art Award and accompanying exhibition have been organized and administered by the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
The Cedar Tavern Singers,  who write  catchy, upbeat, ukulele powered music inspired by art actually have song about the Sobey’s Art Award, named after Sobey’s founder Donald Sobeys, but never expected to actually get nominated for it.
“In 2007 we started writing it, but  every year we’ve updated it  and list the names on the short list, so it keeps getting longer. I guess we’re going to have to add a verse about ourselves,” laughed Wong, 28, adding art professionals choose the five best or most promising  artists in five regions of the country (West Coast and Yukon; Prairies and the North; Ontario; Quebec and the Atlantic) for the long list, which is whittled down to the top artists in each region, which is in turn whittled down to the grand prize winner.

“It was a complete shock to us,” said McTrowe, 34, whose husband David Hoffos won second place for the award back in 2002.

“Our art is our music but then a lot of our (visual) art is inspired  by musical items such as album covers, gig posters and musical instruments,” Wong said.

The University of Lethbridge gets a lot quieter in May and so do the exhibits in the university’s art gallery.
‘In the Stillness,’ which opened May 7, features a variety of sculptures from  the gallery’s collection.
“I wanted to have more sculptures for this exhibition because we haven’t had  any for a while,” said exhibition curator Jane Edmundson.
“I wanted  to put pieces that you have to spend a lot of time with,” she said adding the pieces, while unusual, are a lot more sedate than some of the art often on display at the gallery.
“It’s a very calm, quiet atmosphere,” she continued adding all of the pieces were carefully chosen
“Some of the colours were really too bright or they looked too much like something,” she said adding the cornerstone  piece is one of several pop artist Robert Rauschenberg’s pieces — a viola in a metal muck -bucket— called ‘Tibetan Garden Song.’
“He’s more known for being a pop artist. We have a couple of his pieces in the collection. We’ve had this one in the ’90s and it was shown a lot then but it hasn’t been  shown for about 10 years now,” she said.
 The exhibition runs from May 7-Sept. 10 in the main gallery at the University of Lethbridge.

Calgary based artist Kathleen Moors’s latest exhibit, at the Mueller Gallery is a bit of a homecoming as she attended the University of Lethbridge in the ’70s.
“I went to the U of L from 1973-77. So this is like coming home,” said Moors chatting with art aficionados while standing amongst  a variety of colourful works prominently incorporating exotic animals and which includes a variety of texts plus several pages from old Bibles, during the opening reception, May 1.
“My work is based on our responsibility to  animal species which are in danger of becoming extinct,” Moors said adding the 14 pieces at the Mueller Gallery are part of an ongoing series.