There are a couple of new art exhibits opening tonight.
“Finding your Way Back Home and Zeno’s paradox” features new works by local artist Robert Bechtel.
It runs at Le petit Trianon gallery (104 5 St S). It runs from Feb. 17-April 6.
The opening reception is tonight at 9 p.m.

In the same building, but upstairs  at the Savill Group Architecture and Trianon Gallery, local artist Frater Tham presents Corpus Philosophorum, works on paper by Frater Tham. It also runs Feb. 17-April 6. The opening reception for that is 9 p.m. as well.
 He describes it as “ a compendium of div'rse charts & obfervations illustrating the workings of the philosophik bodie & strange marvels of ye fleshe f'r practicion'rs of ye metaphysik & alchymical artes.”

The Southern Alberta Art Gallery also opens new exhibits tonight.
 “Visualizing  Architecture” is a group exhibition exploring  the idea of data visualization with arts and science. It features works by  artists Jackson 2Bears, Tori Foster, Mary-Anne McTrowe, Robyn Moody, Adrien Segal, Michelle Sylvestre and Scientists Dr. André Laroche, Dr. Jamie Larsen.

The idea began in September 2016 when the Southern Alberta Art Gallery and the Data Physicalization Lab at the University of Lethbridge invited six artists to participate in a residency, documentary film, and exhibition asking them to respond to agricultural data developed by Dr. Jamie Larsen and Dr. André Laroche from the Lethbridge Research and Development Centre: Agriculture and Agri-food Canada. They were provided with two data sets: The first is the result of an experiment on breeding cereal wheats and wheat grasses with the intention of developing a perennial wheat cultivar. The second related to experimentation in genetic modification aimed at reducing wheat’s susceptibility to the devastating pathogen known as stripe rust. The artists were invited to engage with the instruments, test subjects, contexts, methods, and people associated with the development of this data, which they would later consider while creating new work for this exhibition.

Art inspires art. So when local poet Blaine Greenwood went to the Glenbow Museum to see travelling exhibitions of French artist Henri Matisse, Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali and Belgian artist Rene Magritte, he was immediately inspired by their unique world views during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Greenwood just released his second book of poetry “The False Mirror”, inspired by the works of those artists. He will release the book during “Bearing Witness,” a special poetry symposium, Feb. 15 at Andy’s Place (AH100) beginning at 12:15, featuring seven southern Alberta poets including Richard Stevenson, Ali Riley, cowboy poet Ken Sears, Calgary poet Vivian Hansen, Ian McAdam, performance poet Erin Dingle Adam exploring the theme of Bearing Witness until about 2:30 p.m.. Each poet will have about 10 minutes to showcase their works.

“The theme is general enough that all of the poets interpret it differently,” Greenwood said, noting after a break, he will officially be launching his book at 6 p.m. at the U of L bookstore.
“If you can’t make sense of what Blaine Greenwood is saying, then in 10 minutes it will be different. Part of what poetry means depends on the perception of the reader. You bring your own experiences. You may get something completely out of it that I might not have even thought of it. We have seven poets with seven different world views,” he continued.

 His poetry was inspired by the three different world views of three wildly different arts working in the same time period.

“All three of them were working during the Second World War. So when you thunk about that a lot of them are about the chaos of war,” he said.
“Dali interpreted reality through dreams. Dali spoke a lot with Sigmund Freud about the interpretation of dreams. So when you realize that, you realize they (his paintings) make a lot of sense,” he said.
“And everyone dreams, so people can identify with that,” Greenwood continued, adding art, both visual like painting, and literary art is subjective, so everyone brings their own interpretations to art according to their own life experiences.

“Matisse was inspired by Muslim poet Rumi from the twelfth century and he lived in Morocco during the Second World War, so there is a lot of mid eastern and African  imagery in his works. He was inspired by the casbahs there,” Greenwood observed.
“Magritte is known for his (painting of a) gigantic blue eye. All of his works were very monochromatic. He used really bright colours. He started as a graphic designer who designed posters and billboards,” Greenwood observed.

Lethbridge based artist Adrian Cooke explores the design and history of barbed wire in his new exhibit “Chasing the Devil’s Rope,” one of five new exhibits opening at Casa tonight, Jan. 13.
“Chasing the Devil’s Rope” features sculpture and computer generated watercolour prints inspired by the shape of barbed wire, reflecting the historical role of the  product and it’s design.

“ Which was first used as a means of dividing property and controlling and isolating people and animals. Further, it was used as a tool of repression and manipulation in times human conflict. A man-made creation, barbed wire encroaches and divides, transforming our interaction with the landscape,” according to Cooke’s artist statement.

“ Some of the pieces go back seven years,” Cooke, said, noting some  of the original designs were inspired by the work he did  on the decor for Backstreet West.

“Barbed wire has political connotations for First Nations and dividing nature But part of what I was interested in was more the design of it,” he said.
“ Even the shadows of the pieces are important,” he noted, adding some of the horn shaped pieces have a violent connotation.
“ they are very physical.”

He created the sculptures  with OSB board and a digital printer. Two longer watercolour works were hand drawn, scanned and printed  by computer have a wallpaper effect.
 The larger sculptures are layered OSB board designed like pieces of barbed wire. Cooke worked at the U of L for 28 years in various capacities including  with the U of L art gallery.