Leave the cold and muted colours of November behind and step into the warmth of the Okotoks Art Gallery for a hit of sunny, vibrant colours.
Two Okotoks artists with a passion for dipping their paintbrushes into brilliant colours and transforming a blank canvas into a vivacious work of art have once again rallied like-minded artists together for a show of brightly coloured work.
It’s the fourth installation of Janifer Calvez and Cheryl Taylor’s Rage Against Beige show, now on at the Okotoks Art Gallery (OAG).
In addition to new works by Calvez and Taylor, the show features artwork by Melanie Pope, who grew up in Okotoks, along with Elana Goodfellow and Anne Watson of Calgary.
“It’s rich, abundant use of colour, lots of exciting colour combinations and it’s certainly bold and playful,” said Taylor.
It’s now been six years since the first Rage Against Beige show at the gallery, and since then the goal of the show has shifted to now include the artists pushing their own personal boundaries.
“It’s a rage against a personal beige, to change things, shake each of us up for an unexpected outcome,” said Taylor. “To push the boundaries of our art, to create works that we don’t typically do.”
The Rage Against Beige IV show features acrylic paintings by all of the women, with the exception of Elana Goodfellow who worked with oils.
“Elana’s got beautiful paintings purely of skies,” said Taylor. “She painted them as if she was from a bird’s eye view at a window. They’re beautiful.”
Calvez is showing florals, landscapes with animals and abstract paintings; Watson’s pieces are landscapes with bird images in collage; and Melanie Pope is also working with birds, but her pieces are impressionistic style of landscapes and animals.
“Melanie is working with lines – line drawings, almost – and how lines connect all elements of our world back to us,” said Taylor.
Taylor’s own paintings in the show are the first seven works of her new project, called Sustainartability: The 100 km Art Project. The idea stems from the 100-Mile Diet idea, a concept that brings awareness of the health, environmental and economic benefits of buying food from local producers. He submission is a collection of still-lifes, landscapes and abstracts.
“I took inspiration in meeting and interviewing local food producers within a 100km radius of Okotoks,” said Taylor. “As our population grows, and concerns about the quality and quantity of food loom, I think it’s an interesting arena to explore in a visual way.”
The plight of the honey bee, bio hazards, food security, big oil, sky high food prices and world hunger are all concerns at the heart of Taylor’s art project. She aims to create 100 artworks that speak to this idea by 2014.
In The Small Gallery
The Focus on Fibre show features contemporary art in the form of embroidery, rug-hooking, felting and weaving made by artists with disabilities.
The artists are members of the In-Definite Arts Society in Calgary, who meet weekly to do craft-based art.
The Rage Against Beige IV and Focus on Fibre shows are running until Dec. 18 at the Okotoks Art Gallery at The Station Cultural Centre, located at 53 North Railway Street. The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
