Wasagaming gallery hosts first exhibit of year

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This article was published 06/06/2024 (743 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Artists from all walks of life are taking part in the first exhibition of 2024 at Wasagaming Community Arts. The exhibition began on May 24 with a reception at the gallery and will be displayed until June 25.

Four artists were chosen from over 60 applicants, according to president of WCA Ken Romaniuk. He curated the exhibition and went through applications with support from vice-president Lauren Gowler.

“We look and see if their works will play nicely together, or display nicely together, from colouring and composition,” Romaniuk said.

The pieces work well with each other to provide overall cohesion, but that is not to say that each artist’s work is not unique. The four artists use varying techniques and mediums representative of their diverse training and experience.

Douglas Ingram’s photography highlights the beauty of the everyday. Many photographers are drawn to big events, places and things, but Ingram said that his work is focused more on the mundane. He likes focusing on minute details, homing in on qualities that people just throwing a glance wouldn’t notice. For this exhibition, Ingram submitted a series of photographs of a calla lily that sits on his front porch. He took over several hundred photographs for this project but narrowed the exhibition down to a limited series.

“A lot of my interest has been to really pay attention to what’s around me and to really respond well to that … The way to get the best truth in your photography is to really know your subject over time.”

Ingram is working on a similar project featuring a field across the road from where he lives in Lorette. He has been photographing it with the same composition over the years, but in different seasons, lighting conditions, and cropping.

“It’s the same thing, but everything’s always different so the subject becomes time,” he said of the process.

Shirley Rayner is an award-winning artist who describes herself as a lifelong learner. She’s been artistic her whole life, having drawn every day as a kid. But she only started taking art seriously in the last 15 years. Her love of learning has made her adept at many different mediums, including oil and acrylic painting and soft pastels. The work she has included in the WCA exhibition includes figurative and natural subjects.

She paints landscapes most frequently because she likes painting en plein air, which means painting in the landscape. Last year, she was invited to participate in a residency in North Dakota, where she painted outside almost every day.

“Usually people kind of favour certain things (design principles) and I would say for me, it’s colour and shapes, and lastly brushwork. And maybe that’s the energy part of it,” Rayner said.

Rayner chose to submit her work to this exhibition because she has a personal connection to the area. Born in Dauphin, she has spent much of her life exploring Wasagaming and has been to the gallery many times.

Another artist exhibiting, Susan Graham McDougall, is a friend of Rayner’s. The two paint en plain air together quite often. McDougall found Rayner through one of Rayner’s old blogs and asked if she wanted to paint together some time, and the rest was history. Some of the works McDougall is exhibiting were started on outings with Rayner.

This exhibition is a special event for artist David Arbuthnott. A retired accountant, this is his first ever exhibition. Arbuthnott has dabbled in art throughout his life. Historically, he’s drawn with pencil and paper and didn’t start using colour until his retirement when he began exploring acrylic painting.

Arbuthnott received a leisure guide in the mail that included information about a beginner’s acrylic class. That class worked out well, so he decided to further his education at Forum Art Centre in Winnipeg. Arbuthnott’s meticulous attention to detail, carried over from his accounting days, lends itself well to his acrylic work. Subjects are often structural and complicated.

Unlike the other artists, Arbuthnott’s work isn’t for sale.

“I’ve always viewed this as something that’s fun. That’s a hobby. If I made it into a commercial situation all of a sudden, maybe some of the fun would go out of it,” he said.

“I just want to work on it when I want to work on it … I work on what I want to.”

»cmcconkey@brandonsun.com