All tagged RBC Emerging Visual Artists Program
Growing up, art held a special place in my heart and began with my older sister. She's the one who kick-started my artistic journey, and it's sort of a ritual of ours that she insists I acknowledge her role. “Don't forget to tell people where it started,” she playfully reminds me before speaking or writing anything art-related. It's our little inside joke.
Four gallery spaces in Arts Commons have been energized with 13 individual artists spanning the practices of painting, photography, ceramics, and textiles. Take a peek behind-the-scenes to see how these artists make their work come alive at Arts Commons.
It’s your last chance to check out four exhibitions at Arts Commons featured in the visual art galleries throughout the building including the Truth and Reconciliation Exhibition in the +15 Galleries. Showcasing the work of 12 Indigenous artists, these paintings, beadwork, photography, sculpture, and leatherwork pieces serve to reflect on each individual artists’ relationship with the subject and ongoing conversation of Truth and Reconciliation.
Calgary's RAZA is a multi-medium, high-impact artist collective formed by sisters Valentina and Laura Alejandra. Their recent audiovisual work, Lasers of Sentiment, just completed its exhibition period at Arts Commons in the Ledge gallery. They sat down with Arts Commons to talk about how art can bring attention to social issues and further political discussion.
The journey between debuting as an artist and progressing towards professional practice is rarely a smooth one. Wrought with not only the difficulties of cultivating skills and connections, but also having to break into the art scene in a major city is daunting. That’s where the RBC Emerging Visual Artists Program (EVAP) at Arts Commons steps in.
Christopher Savage’s work, along with three other artists, is currently on exhibition in the Window Galleries at Arts Commons, and available now for online 3D tours. The design surrounding Savage’s artwork is logical and intuitive, wanting to draw the viewer in and help them look closer at the network of lines and gestural strokes spanning across his work. But how does such intention translate when the Window Galleries—where Savage along with many other RBC Emerging Visual Artists are showing—are closed to the public? Technology steps in.
When I graduated from SAIT with a Diploma of Journalism in 2013, my parents gave me a book, Flight of the Hummingbird. It tells a story of a raging fire threatening a forest, where animals of all shapes and sizes flee the wall of flames. Every animal, from the bear to the eagle, lamented on their helplessness in the face of such a tragedy and each proclaimed why it was hopeless to try and fight the fire. Throughout this, a single hummingbird flew from the river, carrying a bead of water in its tiny beak and dropped it on the towering inferno. The bird repeated this until the other animals asked why the hummingbird was doing this, to which it replied. “I’m doing what I can”.
When Peter Moller was a little kid, he went to The Grand theatre to watch his very first movie along with his parents and his brother. The Danish family of four was sitting in the iconic Calgary landmark, built in 1912, feeling comfortable on those green leather seats housed in the same space where audiences had seen The Marx Brothers perform, Nelly McClung speak, and crowds rally for both the Liberal and Conservative parties.
