Date: Mar 25, 2024
This group exhibition from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts’ Permanent Collection features a selection of expressionist works which together raise the question, what do you see at first glance?
As studies show, when a viewer looks at a piece of art for the first time, the eye is drawn to an initial focal point, but if one looks away and then back again at the piece, the eye is often drawn to a different point.
The paintings in this exhibition use minimal gestural brushstrokes, vibrant colours and line work to draw the viewer in for a momentary presence into the scene the artist has created. As a viewer, you generate a global impression, or a gist, of a painting with the first glance at it.
Everyone’s eye may be drawn to a different focal point, and we may all see something the next viewer doesn’t see right away.
That is what is so fascinating about art, we all interpret it differently. Some paintings in this exhibition may look like abstract landscapes at first glance, but when you spend more time studying the work, you may see an animal, a boat, a bus or a tree.
At First Glance features the works by sixteen Canadian artists:
- Bradley R.Struble
- Tom Hamilton
- Ron Gust
- Art Whitehead
- Mary Joyce
- Pattie Trouth
- Audrey Watson
- Leslie Pinter
- Susana Espinoza
- Niina Chebry
- Maureen Harvey
- Robin Smith-Peck
Les Graff - Kristen Keegan
- Mark Mullin
- Daniel May
Curated by Jamie-Lee Cormier, Curator/Manager of Travelling Exhibitions Northwest