THUNDER BAY – The city’s art gallery is highlighting works produced throughout the entire region.
On Friday night the Thunder Bay Art Gallery is launching The North Now exhibition, a juried collection of works from all across Northern Ontario.
Curator Nadia Kurd said the collection marks a new path for the art gallery.
“This is the first time we’ve done this type of exhibition. It’s great to get artists from this region excited about showing their work here at the gallery,” Kurd said Friday morning.
“If anything this is showing us there is a need and a desire to see works from this region.”
The art gallery received nearly 300 works of art from more than 100 artists, with 79 pieces selected by a jury committee for the final collection.
Submissions included paintings, drawings, sculptures, projection mapping as well as video and multimedia projects.
While there was a wide array of mediums for the different pieces, there are common threads throughout the exhibition.
“We’re really looking at the best works from the region as well as themes that were connected to each other to provide a good glimpse of what’s happening in the north,” Kurd said.
The art gallery received submissions from artists based in areas including Thunder Bay, Kenora, Sault Ste. Marie and all over Northern Ontario.
One of those artists is Kasia Piech, who is originally from Hamilton but lives in Thunder Bay while teaching art at Lakehead University.
While she has only lived in the region for the past five years, Piech has been enthralled by the connection to the natural northern environment.
That’s what inspired her ceramic sculpture which is on display.
“You’re surrounded by trees and the environment is so large as opposed to down south,” Piech said.
“I thought, what would happen if you were just sitting on your porch? Would nature just engulf you? Would you just be surrounded and sucked into the environment? That’s what that is, a person sitting outside and they become one with their surroundings.”
Visitors to the art gallery will be greeted by a large work from Fort William First Nation artist Christian Chapman, which is a play on the classic piece Man Changing Into a Thunderbird by Norval Morriseau.
The piece by Chapman is called Elvis Changing Into a 77 Thunderbird and evokes similar artistic style but with an imposed picture of Elvis Presley, culminating in a transformation to the classic car.
The exhibition will be on display at the art gallery until Jan. 4, 2015.
