Tomorrow is the first day of spring! To celebrate the official end of winter, please enjoy this artwork by Kenneth Samuelson simply titled Spring.
 

The March equinox, which marks the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere, occurs when the sun crosses the equator line, heading north in the sky. The northern hemisphere is now beginning to tilt towards the sun, meaning more sunlight and warmer temperatures!
 

About the Artist: Kenneth Samuelson

Kenneth Samuelson is a painter and printmaker. His early printmaking work had a highly graphic style and concentrated on the derivative abstraction of the surrounding landscape. In his more recent work, Samuelson captures detailed scenes of the landscape using oils and watercolours. For Samuelson, painting is directly tied to memory, and he paints as a way to capture and remember the inspirational moments of light and colour in the landscape.

Samuelson majored in design at the Alberta College of Art and Design (now the Alberta University of the Arts), and studied printmaking at the University of Calgary. Samuelson was co-owner of a graphic design studio for a decade, and from 1968 to 1996, he was on faculty at the Alberta College of Art and Design, teaching drawing, design, rendering, letter form, and watercolour. Shortly after his retirement, he was awarded Lecturer Emeritus.

Samuelson has exhibited widely and was a member in the Alberta Society of Artists, the Manisphere Group of Artists, the Canadian Society of Graphic Art, and with Canadian Painter-Etchers and Engravers. His work is in the collection of the Canada Council Art Bank, the Calgary-Edmonton Jubilee Auditoriums, the A.C. Leighton Foundation, Shell Canada, Gulf Oil, and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

Strange Jury #2 asks the viewer to challenge their perspectives by seeing nature through a different lens. The artwork is intended to depict a trial in the forest. The viewer is the defendant. The jury is Nature.

This artwork is part of a series of five works. When installed in a gallery, five giant prints are hung in a circle off the ground to depict five characters of the forest with animistic faces. The AFA acquired one of these prints through the Art Acquisitions by Application to be a part of the AFA Art Collection.
 

About the artist

Dwayne Martineau is an Edmonton based visual artist and musician. He is a treaty member of Frog Lake First Nation, descended from Plains Cree, Métis, and early French and Scottish settlers.

He enjoys seeing the world like a child full of discovery. Also, he approaches the world with a critical mind, seeking both truth and wonder. His visual arts practice began with experimental landscape photography, and has evolved to include videography and immersive large-scale art installations.

Art Acquisitions by Application

The next deadline for the AFA’s Art Acquisition by Application program is April 1! Read the guidelines if you’re interested in submitting your artwork to have it be considered for acquisition to the AFA Art Collection.

Image description

The artwork is an abstracted photograph on backlit film that suggests an animistic creature in a forest. A black, insect-like face with large antennae floats on a faded yellow background, with black trees and bushes in the background. 

Family Day is an opportunity to appreciate what makes family special and to spend quality time with your family and loved ones. Having positive personal connections can help with overall health and well-being.

Every family make up is different. The definition of family can be much broader than the traditional picture of a mother, father and their children. Our featured work, Family of Three by Stanford Perrot, takes this traditional concept of family and abstracts the image to express feeling through shape, line and color.
 

Let us recognize and honour the many different types of family units there can be: the best building blocks to happiness are healthy relationships.

Enjoy Family Day and we encourage you to take part in art and explore the province with your loved ones:

• AFA's virtual museum: check out our online collection of Albertans' artwork from the comfort of your home
• Alberta license free Family Fishing Weekend: see if there is an opportunity to photograph the moments or sketch your experience afterwards 
• Alberta historic sites and museums: selected museums and sites are offering free admission. Contact each heritage facility first prior to attending to check on the opening hours, advanced registration and COVID guidelines. See if there are any artwork there that sparks your inner creativity.

About the artist

Stanford Perrott was an influential art educator and watercolourist. His collection also includes mid-century abstract work.

He was born in Claresholm, Alberta and studied in New York. He also attended and taught at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art, where he eventually became the head of the college. He learnt from Hans Hoffman and was strongly influenced by abstract expressionism and cubism.

In the 1960s, Perrott convinced the government of Alberta to expand the arts section of the institute to have its own building. Perrott and his associates made his wish come true in creating the Alberta College of Art and Design (which has since further transformed into the Alberta University of the Arts). 

Although he did not raise a family of his own, he was an excellent educator and mentor to his students and colleagues – his extended family.

Image description

The image is an abstracted form of a family of three, represented by simple curvilinear forms. The adult and child figures are depicted through black and white shapes, accented with red and green tones. The artwork is lithograph on paper.

Did you know Lunar New Year is celebrated by various cultures including Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and other East and Southeast Asian cultures? Every year, the date changes depending on the first new moon to mark the new year. 
 

While each culture and ethnicity celebrates with differing foods, duration and traditions, each culture shares the same goal of reunion and well wishes of prosperity for the coming year. We hope the Year of the Tiger brings you a year full of good health, success and happiness!
 

About the artist:

Peter Greendale started his residency at the Banff Centre in 1984/85. He is inspired by the common everyday object and the culture's origin.

This week's Work of the Week is Elephants Chiefly Series by Illingworth Kerr in honour of World Elephant Day, which was on Wednesday, August 12.
 

This conte crayon sketch of of an elephant is just one of 21 sketches of elephants by Kerr in the AFA's collection! You can see all the elephants sketches here.

Did you know: Elephants and humans share a long history throughout our civilization? The Asian elephant has lived alongside humans for over 4,000 years and is imbued with reverence, tradition and spirituality across many cultures. 
 

About the Artist: Illingworth Kerr (1905-1989)

llingworth Kerr studied at the Central Technical School, Toronto in 1924. From 1924 to 1927, Kerr studied under Arthur Lismer, J.E.H. MacDonald, Frederick Varley and J.W. Beatty at the Ontario College of Arts. Kerr also studied at the Westminster School of Art, London, in 1936, as well as with Hans Hoffman in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1954. In 1955 and 1957, he attended Emma Lake Workshops.

He taught at the Vancouver School of Art from 1945 to 1946 and was head of the Alberta College of Art (now the Alberta University of the Arts) from 1947 to 1967. There he was a great influence and friend to many artists of that era. From 1952 to 1953, he was president of the Alberta Society of Artists. Kerr was also a member of the Canadian Authors Association; he wrote many short stories and illustrated many publications, including his autobiography, Gay Dogs and Dark Horses, in 1946. He received a Canada Council Award in 1960.

He painted portraits, the life of Indigenous peoples, urban views, wildlife, and the prairie and Ontario landscape. He used the media of oil, acrylic, watercolour, charcoal, and ink, as well as woodblock, linoblock, monotype and silkscreen prints.

 

We can't let this week end without celebrating National Dog Day, which was on August 26, so this week's Work of the Week is Good Dog by Lori Lukasewich!
 

About the Artist: Lori Lukasewich
 

Lori Lukasewich has been painting and exhibiting since 1984. She often paints intimate scenes with domestic objects, like a porcelain figure or a silver tea set. In this age of immediacy and urgency, her work slows things down and contemplates stillness and focus, and reflects on perceptions of value, particularly on domesticity and the woman’s role in creating a home. She shines a light on the beauty of everyday home life as a common and necessary antidote to the difficulties and stress of the modern-day world.

Lukasewich paints in oils and alkyd mediums, using modified traditional techniques of underpainting, overpainting and glazing. While clearly influenced by realism and the painting techniques of the Old Masters, her work owes more of a debt to the practice of meditation. Her realist paintings often express an ethereal light and singular focus that is at once calming and pleasurable.

Lukasewich studied art at the Alberta College of Art and Design (now the Alberta University of the Arts), and has applied her skills to painting, graphic arts, jewelry design, palaeontological restoration, and film and television. She has also written and illustrated three children’s books.

Lukasewich has been teaching painting for 20 years, much of that time in the Extended Studios program at the Alberta University of the Arts (AUArts). She has exhibited extensively, and her work can be found in many public and private collections.

This week's Work of the Week is Cold Night at the Yards by Stan Phelps. 
 

Brrr! It's cold out there! A polar vortex has settled over much of the prairies bringing icy cold temperatures for the next few days. 
 

This artwork by Stan Phelps really captures the feeling of a cold, dark night with the exhaust from industrial buildings hanging in the frigid air. 

About the Artist: Stan Phelps

Stan Phelps is a Calgary-based artist and teacher, known for his prints, paintings and murals.

He earned a BFA from the University of Calgary in 1974. After graduation, he worked as a graphic artist and freelance writer and photographer, as well as teaching art, for the City of Calgary. He also taught for the Calgary and the Catholic School Boards. After five years with the City, he travelled widely in Europe, mostly to Spain. There he lived for a year, sketching, painting and visiting art galleries. He was a visiting artist at several international studios, including in Murcia, Spain and Urapan, Mexico. His artwork is often inspired by his travels.

In 1978, Phelps and his partner, artist Carole Bondaroff, founded The Heart Studio in Calgary’s Kensington area. This multi-disciplinary art facility holds exhibitions, and offers classes and workshops for adults and children. Phelps’ teaching work extends to positions such as Artist in Residence in various Alberta schools, where he introduces students to making art including murals, cartoons and inflatable sculptures. He has also served as Director and Artist in Residence at the Perrenoud Homestead Historic Site and Art Centre, near Cochrane, Alberta.

Phelps’ art works comprise oils, acrylics and watercolours, mostly of landscapes, historic buildings and figures in urban settings. He has also produced etchings, such as the Muses series (2010), lighthearted depictions of the Greek goddesses of culture. His murals can be seen throughout Western Canada, especially in Southern Alberta, and feature scenes from local history. They are also on display at the Calgary Stampede, the Calgary Public Library and at Calgary’s International Airport.

His works have been purchased by the Canada Council Art Bank in Ottawa, and are held in private and corporate collections nationally and internationally.
 

This week’s Work of the Week is Wisdom Trail by acclaimed Indigenous artist Alex Janvier in honour of the master artist’s birthday, which was this past Sunday on February 28!

Happy to birthday to Mr. Janvier!
 

About the Artist: Alex Janvier

Alex Janvier was born on the Le Goff Reserve, Cold Lake First Nations, Alberta, in 1935.

He was raised in the Chipewyan tradition until he attended the Blue Quill Residential Indian School at the age of eight. Janvier graduated with Honours from the Alberta College of Art in 1960 and since then has built an international reputation as a painter, muralist and printmaker. He has influenced a younger generation of native artists through his paintings and advocacy work with arts organizations and land claim committees.

Janvier's imagery is a combination of traditional native decorative motifs such as medicine wheels, floral designs and symbolic colour combinations. In the late 1980's and early 1990's, his work became more representational and concerned with specific social and political issues.

Janvier has been the recipient of many accolades throughout his career. Since 2007, he has received honourary doctorates from both the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta, was appointed to the Order of Canada, received a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts and was the first ever recipient of the Marion Nicoll Visual Arts Award from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

Alex Janvier continues to live and work in Cold Lake.

Double Take is curated by Shannon Bingeman, and generously funded through the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Emerging Curator Fellowship. Click through the images in the exhibition above, then scroll down to learn more about the pieces.
 

Explore this exhibition on Google Arts & Culture.

Double Take challenges perceptions of logical order. Each piece represented in the show has elements that are inherently familiar—a bed, a human figure, doorways, houses, vases—and yet, they provoke a feeling of the uncanny. There is something mysterious, alluring and in some instances, eerie, about each sculpture, photograph and installation.

The uncanny is a psychoanalytic concept that dates back to the writings of Ernst Jentsch in 1906. Although the term is difficult to define because it relies on personal experience, it is generally agreed that something that possesses uncanny characteristics combines elements of the familiar and the peculiar—a tension between the known and the unknown. Over the years, many artists have fabricated uncanny elements in their work as a method of questioning reality and exploring displacement and illusion.

In Greg Payce’s work the uncanny is achieved through manipulation of space. At first glance his ceramics read as a traditional arrangement of decorative objects but it doesn’t take long before illusions of bodies, faces and shoes emerge in the negative spaces. Kristopher Karklin and Colin Smith are artists who also explore illusion to create dynamic images. Karklin presents us with a seemingly ordinary photograph of a woman standing in a nondescript space but something is slightly askew. What we are actually looking at is a photograph of a miniature room modeled by the artist. The figure was photographed separately and superimposed to create the final image. For Smith, illusion is explored using a camera obscura, an optical device that predates photography. Images of exterior scenes pass through a small lens into a darkened room and are inverted and projected onto the walls. The result is an alluring juxtaposition between two seemingly disparate worlds that leaves the viewer ungrounded—what is up and what is down?

Michael Campbell, Sarah Fuller and Dan Hudson challenge perceptions of logical order through their interventions into nature. Campbell achieves this by including unexpected objects in the environment-- things that we would expect to find at an airport rather than in the interior of a forest. In Fuller’s work it is the opposite. The photographic prints on linen in Aldcroft Residence and Dubois Residence, which illustrate houses nestled into the woods, seem eerily fitting in their environment. Nevertheless, the viewer is aware that what they are looking at is an illusion. In Dan Hudson’s installation, River, it is the manipulation of time in the recorded landscape that lends itself to notions of the uncanny. We witness the season’s change at a rapid pace but the meticulous editing makes it feel as though the video was filmed in real time.

According to Caterina Albano in her article Uncanny: A Dimension in Contemporary Art “the uncanny happens as a blurring of reality at the erosion of the boundaries between the real and the imagined.”[1] All of the artists included in this exhibition explore that boundary through their use of scale, materials, optical effects and spatial manipulations. The result is a compelling arrangement of artwork that stimulates cognitive tension and warrants further investigation.

Artwork Descriptions

Kristopher Karklin, Jack and Jill Room, 2011, digital print on paper, 2012.018.001

Process and memory are fundamental to Karklin’s work. Jack and Jill Room is not a documented record of a specific place and time but a composite image skillfully crafted. The artist begins his process by re-creating environments from his memory in the form of miniature models. Like memory, these built environments are subject to distortion. The model and the figure are photographed separately and superimposed to complete the narrative. The lack of detail in the room and the anonymity of the figure are intentional. It removes ownership of the artist’s memory and allows us to recall our own lived experiences.

Sarah Fuller, Aldcroft Residence, 2013, archival inkjet print on ilford galerie gold fibre silk, 2014.016.001

Sarah Fuller, Dubois Residence, 2013, archival inkjet print on ilford galerie gold fibre silk, 2014.016.002

The buildings in Aldcroft Residence and Dubois Residence are both at home and displaced. The photographs are a record of a site-specific installation that the artist created in Bear Creek, Yukon Territory in 2013. Originally constructed as a company town for the Yukon Consolidated Gold Corporation, Bear Creek was abandoned in 1966 and many of the buildings were lifted from their foundations and transported to nearby Dawson City. Titled The Homecoming, Fuller’s installation integrated five of these buildings back into their original location using large-scale prints on linen. She also used theatre techniques from the 19^th century to manipulate the prints, making them appear to transition from dusk to night. The end result is a ghost-like conjuring of the past—one that reminds us of the transient nature of place.

Colin Smith, Sebee, AB, 2010, archival metallic lightjet print on plexiglass, 2010.042.004

Colin Smith, Vulcan Aerodome, 2010, archival metallic lightjet print on plexiglass, 2010.042.005

Colin Smith, 56 Trolley, 2010, archival metallic lightjet print on plexiglass, 2010.042.001

Light passes through a small hole in a darkened room and the space is transformed. An inverted image of the exterior world is cast over the interior walls and the effect is photographed by the artist using a single exposure that can take hours. The process appears complex but the physics behind it is quite simple. Smith creates his work using a camera obscura, an optical device that dates back to antiquity and has been used as a tool by artists including Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675). Like the camera obscura, the scenes that Smith captures have a rich connection to the past. Sebee, Vulcan Aerodome and 56 Trolley are all records of abandoned Albertan landscapes included in the Camera Obscura in Abandoned Landscape Series.

Colin Smith, Satellite Motel, 2009, archival metallic lightjet print, 2012.027.001

Colin Smith’s journey into photography began during a motorcycle trip from Calgary to Santiago in 1997. The influence of the road is apparent in Satellite Motel: one photograph in the Rooms With a View Series that was taken in hotel rooms across Western Canada. For anyone who has travelled through Medicine Hat on the trans Canada highway, the sign in Satellite Motel may look familiar. It is one of a handful of old motel signs that still remain on the outskirts of the city. Typical to Smith’s style, the image is constructed using a camera obscura. 

Greg Payce, Vase to Vase, 1995, earthenware with terra sigillata, 2011.058.004.A-C

Greg Payce, Pairadocs, 1996, earthenware with terra sigillata, 2011.058-006.A-C

Greg Payce’s work is an exploration of binary relationships—shape and form, background and foreground, reality and illusion. In Pairadocs and Vase to Vase the result of this exploration creates compelling optical illusions that formalize in the negative spaces between the vases. These vases are arranged in a manner reminiscent of a garniture (a traditional arrangement of two to five vases on a mantelpiece) and yet their skillfully articulated profiles reveal unexpected subjects – a pair of Doc Marten shoes and two faces. Furthermore, the artist adds a layer of humour to each work through the clever wordplay in his titles; Pairadocs rather than paradox and Vase to Vase recalling the term face to face.

Greg Payce, Kiss Detail, 2001, digital photograph on vinyl, 2011.058.009

Kiss Detail documents a portion of the artist’s three-dimensional work through the use of photography. Unlike Pairadocs and Vase to Vase, the whole of the ceramic work is not visible and the shape created by the negative space is quite ambiguous. Instead the figurative component in this work is connected to the vessel itself. The modulation of the edge on each piece reveals a generic depiction of two figures, one male and one female ready for an embrace.

Greg Payce, David, 2006, porcelain, 2007.023.001.AB

Greg Payce, Gemini, 2006, porcelain, 2007.023.002.ABC

In David and Gemini the illusionary figures are strikingly similar and nondescript. They appear as idealized depictions of the male figure but not specific to any male in particular. This effect allows the work to be open to interpretation. The artist isn’t trying to convey a specific meaning, but his titles are suggestive of biblical and astrological subjects. David may be a reference to the hero who slayed Goliath and whose idealized figure has been immortalized in stone by many artists including Donatello, Bernini and perhaps most famously, Michelangelo. Also, Gemini with its two identical figures, is likely a reference to the constellation of the same name, which fittingly means twins in Latin.

Greg Payce, Pantheon Verismilus, 2007, digital image laminated with plastic lenticular lens on laminate Dibond, 2011.058.010.A-E

In this work, Payce alters our experience of ceramic objects by moving away from an emphasis on the handmade, tactile quality of the medium towards a fascinating optical effect using lenticular photography; a technology that gives printed images the illusion of depth. Pantheon Verismilus, which depicts 40 vessels with implied male and female forms, is the artist’s first large scale image using this method. When viewed in person, it has a holographic-like appearance, an effect that is created by interlacing multiple images of an object from different vantage points. After the image is printed, plastic lenses are laminated to the surface and reflect portions of the image depending on the viewer’s perspective. As the viewer shifts in relation to the photograph, the image is in flux, appearing three-dimensional. By using this technology, the artist is able to work on a monumental scale in a way that would not be practical in ceramics. The vessels take on an almost human scale, which in the words of the artist “heighten the physical and visceral relationship to the viewer’s own body scale.”[2]

Michael Campbell, Remote Transponder I (Granite Staircase), 2003, backlit digital photograph printed on transparent film, painted wood box, fluorescent light bulb, 2004.003.001

Michael Campbell’s installation Remote Transponder I (Granite Staircase) creates a fictitious narrative by combining a remote landscape with an object displaced from its original function. In this case, the unlikely element is the granite staircase, which leads the viewer’s gaze downward, suggesting another space beneath the undergrowth. Unlike the Sentinel series, this work has an added sculptural component to its construction. The imagery is printed as a transparency and backlit within a painted wooden box.

Michael Campbell, Sentinel – Display, 2004, digital photograph on paper, 2007.031.001

Michael Campbell, Sentinel – Entry, 2004, digital photograph on paper, 2007.031.002

A sentinel is a person or thing that stands guard, controlling access to a particular place. In Michael Campbell’s Sentinel – Entry and Sentinel – Display, the objects grab our attention but their functions seem meaningless in the desolate landscapes. Exactly whose access do these objects control and for what purpose? Both photographs are a part of the artist’s Sentinel project, a series of digitally constructed works that fuse landscapes captured in the Crowsnest Pass, Alberta, with objects photographed in airports around the world.

Dan Hudson, River, 2011, HD video, gold-leaf wood frame, 2013.010.001

Set within the static gilded frame of Dan Hudson’s River installation is a mesmerizing and meticulously crafted moving image. It has the feel of a real-time video recording and yet the rapid shift of the changing seasons in the uninhabited landscape challenges that perception. In addition to the video footage, the artist includes an audio component from a busy city—we hear people talking, laughing, and arguing. The two components seem at odds but are fundamentally connected: the artist gathered both over the course of a year from different ends of the same river.