Art Beat

New video examines Robert Bechtel’s “Studium” exhibit at Trianon Art Gallery

Friday, 19 June 2020 15:31 Richard Amery

The multi-talented, multi-disciplinary artist Nick Bohle has killed two bird with one stone, so to speak by filming a new video with local artist Robert Bechtel and helping out the Lethbridge Soup Kitchen.

Nick Bohle performing with Dead Army. Photo by Richard Amery
Bohle, who wears many hats including actor, film maker as well as a solo musician and guitarist for local hard rock band Dead Army, just released his video last week.
The video, under Bohle’s company name Hat Chap Productions, is about Bechtel’s exhibit ‘Studium’ which now has an extended run until July 31 at the Trianon Art Gallery thanks to Covid 19.

“I was walking in the coulee after work on the west side between the wetlands and the dike and ran into John Savill (owner of the Trianon). It’s a nice place to walk. And we got to talking. I’ve known John for a long time because his son and my younger brother went to school together. And he told me about the new exhibit, which nobody could see because of Covid 19. So the idea of a making a documentary about the came up,” Bohle related, noting he filmed it in between a lot of other projects including a new solo single due out in August and auditioning for acting jobs.

“I composed the music for the video too. it was a challenge to create the right mood for the exhibit. I didn't get it finished until two weeks after the video was finished,” he said. adding he only had a passing knowledge of Bechtel’s work before the video.

“I always liked art. I studied it in school. I’d heard of Rob and walked by his works at Casa, but I didn’t really know him. He is an exceptional artist. He has a very Van Gogh painterly style,” he said adding Bechtel has an impressive body of work.

“There’s 200 pieces in this exhibit all from the past two years. He paints about a painting a day. And he graduated from the University of Lethbridge in 1995 and has painted steadily since then for about 25 years,” he enthused, adding he was glad to support Bechtel with the video.

Casa cautiously reopening after Covid

Wednesday, 03 June 2020 12:37 Richard Amery

Casa is slowly and cautiously reopening this month.
“I think people are getting tired of doing things through a screen and are excited to have real life experiences again,” said the Allied Arts Council executive director Suzanne Lint.
“ But our priority is the safety of staff and patrons,” she emphasized, noting 168,000 people visited Casa last year, based on door counts. The University of Lethbridge Conservatory attracted 5,000 students last year.
“It’s a lot. It’s a very busy building,” she said.
“ We won’t be able to accommodate all of them at once,” she said.
The Allied Arts Council is excited to present new , albeit limited programming in the first reopening phase..
Registration for children’s summer camps is this week.

“ But while we had 40 last year, we’re down to seven now. We want to give kids an opportunity to make art”Lint said, adding the camps will teach single cohorts of children with one teacher per class. Each class will have between six to eight members.

“They’ll be working with both two dimensional and and three dimensional art,” she said, adding teachers will not be teaching more than one class and children will be staying in the same class throughout the week long camps.

CASA exhibits focus on photography

Thursday, 05 March 2020 10:15 Richard Amery

Casa’s new exhibits feature photography. Darcy Logan examines Wes Bell’s exhibit On the Line, running at Casa until April 10. Photo by Richard Amery
“ We’re featuring a series of photography exhibits which are here in conjunction with Exposure Fest,” noted curator Darcy Logan.
“So it’s a celebration of photography.”

U of L BFA graduate Angeline Simon looked into her family history for “With Warmest Regards” in the main gallery.
“Angeline explored archival photographs from her family history. She manipulated them to explore ideas of identity and culture,” he said, adding that examines the concept erasure.

“It’s about considering yourself while and your family while being separated by them geographically,” he continued.

“It’s about imagination and the effect of family moving,” he said.
The other half of the gallery features four suites of photographs, which make up Wes Bells’ “ On The Line.”

“ it is four bodies of work that reflect impermanence,” Logan said.

The first suite features stairs in various states of disrepair.
“He took these photographs of places people used to live in upstate new York,” said Logan, noting the Medicine Hat based Bell was a fashion photographer in places like New York and Milan before he moved back to where he was born.
“ They are of place people used to live and then fell into a state of disuse and disrepair,” he said.

Mortar & Brick present “unsettling” images in False Positive

Sunday, 26 January 2020 16:41 Richard Amery

Mortar & Brick gallery presents works from four different artists in their latest exhibition “ False Positive,” which runs until Feb. 11. The exhibit opened on Jan. 15. Mortar & Brick features foiur artists in “False Positive” Photo by Richard Amery
False Positive features works by Calgary artist Barry Russell Lorne, Kelowna artist Wanda Lock and Lethbridge artists Eileen Murray and Corinne Thiessen.
“The last chance to see it is Feb. 8,” said Mortar & Brick Arts & Events co-ordinator Courtney Green.
“It’s a collection of artwork that could be considered creepy. They are very unsettling,” Green said.

The exhibit is “an exploration of the artists’ relationship to positive and negative space, the certainty that life is uncertain and how they come together in a journey through the human body,” according to a press release about the exhibit.

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