Town Centre spaces to transform into art gallery

Vacant storefront windows in The Town Centre mall in downtown Brandon will become an unexpected public art gallery, featuring more than 45 artworks beginning next month as a way to revitalize the space.

The large-scale exhibition titled “Re/Fenestration” runs from Aug. 6 to Nov. 28, showcasing 15 artists from southern Manitoba. The exhibition is hosted by Rural Arts Westman (RAW), an artist-led collective dedicated to supporting and connecting artists across Westman.

Chris Reid, a member of Rural Arts Westman, said the upcoming exhibition explores the idea of reframing.

“By placing it within The Town Centre, (we’re) asking people to sort of reconsider how we use malls or how we use those public spaces,” she said.

The display encourages visitors to shift their perspective and experience The Town Centre as something beyond a shopping location and rather a place for curiosity, reflection and conversation.

“Re/Fenestration” embraces the history of The Town Centre’s changing atmosphere while offering a fresh perspective on its future, viewing vacant storefronts as opportunities for creativity, RAW said in a news release on Wednesday.

The artists’ original works, including paintings, photography and mixed media, will be reproduced into vinyl stickers throughout the mall, creating a walkable exhibit that celebrates the calibre and diversity of the visual arts community, Reid said.

Reid has two pieces of art in the exhibition.

“What I’ve been doing now is combining images that are downtown Brandon with fish,” she said.

One of her pieces shows two orange goldfish swimming in a back alley and the other shows two blue and green fish swimming between bare trees in front of a building as a few snails creep along the ground.

Emil Reid, who has no relation to Chris Reid, said he’s spent the last few months creating his artwork “Emergent Mooks,” which will be about six feet tall and pasted to one of the front doors of The Town Centre’s main entrance.

“One thing I like to do with my work is have a conceptual theme behind them,” he said, adding that he likes to combine sophisticated ideas with “goofy imagery” as a juxtaposition.

For example, his art for the exhibition includes 23 variants of yellow and orange cartoon-like figures that are layered on top of each other in a pattern.

“The idea is that from far away, it looks like a bunch of noise or solid colours … but when you get up close, you see the individual components,” he said.

The idea, he added, has been floating around his head for years and the exhibition was the perfect time to bring it to life.

“It’s basically just experimenting with the pose and the silhouettes and trying to make as many wacky combinations as possible.”

Shan Pullan will be showcasing three digital scans of 35 mm photographic film as a form of abstract art. The pieces are titled “Through the Trees,” “Through the Glass” and “Can You See Her” and will be displayed across the hall from the Red Cat Dessert & Teahouse.

“They’re purposely blurred. It’s kind of the intention of letting whoever’s looking at it interpret it their own way, just like how everybody experiences memories a different way,” she said.

“I use photography as a different way of documenting my memories and realities.”

Pullan said she uses a process called “film souping” where she boils film in different solutions before it’s developed, which causes the film’s layers to blend, ripple and change colour.

She said she’s excited about the opportunity to share her work with a new audience in a more accessible way.

Dhairya Vaidya, another artist with two pieces in the exhibition, said he was inspired to create art in the context of how a traveller or new resident may view Brandon after he moved to the city four years ago from India.

“I’ve always been interested and intrigued and fascinated by the way shopping centres or like downtown hubs of different cities look and how they influence the experience of a visitor,” he said.

His painting “The Last Transit” is influenced by a video he took while riding the bus late at night. The painting captures the evening skyline with the glow of city lights and Vaidya’s reflection in the window of the bus, drawing on the concept of time passing by.

His second piece of art, a digital collage called “Inspire,” uses photographs he’s taken around Brandon.

Vaidya said he’s interested to learn how people interpret his art.

People are invited to attend the exhibition’s opening reception on Aug. 6 from 3 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The exhibition is free for anyone to see over the course of its run.

» tadamski@brandonsun.com