New exhibits at Casa and SAAG explore Alberta and cosplay

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Casa has a number of new art exhibits happening this month.Darcy Logan poses with Faces and Facades. photo by Richard Amery
 Artists Ed Bader and Peter Greendale explore  Alberta in their  exhibit “Northwest/Southwest” which opened at Casa, Nov. 4.
“Both of them are established artists who earned BFAs  at the University of Lethbridge before beginning their art careers,” said Casa curator Darcy Logan.
“It is an exploration of Alberta and two different geographic areas,’” Logan continued.


“ Ed Bader uses colours and collages to describe northwestern Alberta. While Peter Greendale uses photographs to describe southwestern Alberta,” Logan said.
The second half of the main gallery features something  completely different— Ethan Roth’ s “Faces and Facades, which includes full sized paper sculptures of familiar cosplay and pop culture uniforms and armour.
“They are large folded paper sculptures which reflects his love of cosplay,” Logan observed.
“There are five large paper sculptures.”


One familiar sculptures include a Star Wars storm trooper and Iron Man. The others come from Graphic novels and video games.
“ There are also  two completed ones inspired by the virtual reality game Skyrim he has taken to conventions across the country,” Logan said. To indicate how much work goes into each costumes, there is a breakdown of a seemingly simple cube, which includes several thousand individual components.
 There are three other exhibitions  at Casa.


Len Komenac, whose comic strip/ Roy Lichtenstein/Andy Warhol  inspired work is often on display at the Owl Acoustic lounge tries something a little different for his exhibit “Small Worlds,” which is on display in the Casa entrance hall.


“He’s forced alternate perception to create miniature worlds he has photographed,” Logan said.
There are also two exhibits upstairs.


Linda Hajash’s “Not to be Toyed With” explores how toys affect genre roles in children.
“So she’s altered Barbie dolls to deal with genre roles,” Logan said.


The last exhibit is Criss Wiebe’s exhibit “ The Nature of Transition.”
“He expresses himself through acrylic on painting paintings.”


This week, Dec. 9 the Southern Alberta Art Gallery opens  two new southern Alberta tied exhibits.The new exhibits, Tyler Los-Jones’ ‘a slow light’ and Quebec artists Richard  Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens‘ ‘The Golden USB’ run Dec. 9-Feb. 4. Lor -Jones was inspired by  bands of strata in the mountains of the Crowsnest Pass  reflecting how the  landscapes are in a constant state of flux during a 2015 residency  and how the people utilized  directional at the Gushal Studio in Blairmore.

SAAG describes the exhibit “the wayfinding devices take on a double meaning; reflecting the history of the community in relation to a shifting environment, as well as the desires which are projected onto the place by those from outside the region. Through this collection of photographs, and sculptures, a slow light aims to generate experiences for wayfinding, disorienting and reorienting our sense of time and space in a complicated present. 


Los-Jones has recently exhibited work at Art Gallery of Alberta (Edmonton), Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Division Gallery (Toronto), and Ditch Projects (Springfield).
The Quebec artists Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens developed their exhibit at the Gushul Institute in Blairmore.


“ The Golden USB” is  a multi-media exhibit including video, performance and installation. It is described as an exploration of capitalism“ the Trade Catalog of Everything; a digital file listing all existing and potential commodities our earth has to offer, making available the necessary conditions for interstellar commercial trade.”
The opening reception is  at 8 p.m., Dec. 9.

— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor

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