The Leighton Art Centre is giving people the chance to see the greatness of Canada without hitting the road.
On the Scene, a Celebration of the Canadian Landscape is an exhibition showing at the Leighton Art Centre gallery through Aug. 26. Beautiful outdoor images from across the nation make up this collection of work presented by the Society of Canadian Artists (SCA).
The president of the organization, Gerald St. Maur of Edmonton, is also a contributing artist to the show. He said having one of the SCA’s show at the Leighton Centre is indicative of a shift in the organization’s focus.
“We’re a national society,” he said “We have exhibits throughout the country. Most of the exhibitions are in central Canada, in the Toronto area for example, for obvious reasons. Most of our members are in central Canada. But things are changing. I believe I am the first president of the organization from outside central Canada so the idea of reaching out throughout the country is obviously very prominent in the SCA right now.”
On the Scene is not a touring show. It is making its only Canadian appearance in the Foothills.
St. Maur himself has two works in the exhibit covering both of his preferred landscape mediums, charcoal and pastel. He explained his art is generally produced in a studio not on site.
“I usually work in the beginning from a photograph,” he said. “It’s probably months even years after I take the picture that I actually go and try and do justice to it. What ends up on the canvas or the paper really doesn’t look much like the original photograph. That’s a sort of artistic license or prerogative, to work it up in a way that recreates for the viewer the feeling you had when you first saw it.”
There are approximately 50 pieces in the On the Scene collection. Eight Alberta artists have work in the show, which was juried by Ontario artist Tony Batten, Calgary painter Jean Pederson and executive director of the Leighton Art Centre, Tony Luppino.
Another painter involved with getting the show to the centre is Toronto’s Andrew Sookrah. The SCA chair of exhibitions has a pair of oil paintings in On The Scene which come from a past sea adventure.
“I was on a painting trip six years ago called Arctic Quest,” Sookrah said. “That year was the centenary of the discovery of the northwest passage. We were on an expedition ship. We sailed from Iqaluit up to Greenland and came back across the Canadian territory.”
A half dozen years after the voyage the artist explained he remains transfixed by the Canadian arctic and has been painting icebergs and other images from the region ever since.
Megan Kerluke, program director for the Leighton Art Centre, said the landscape exhibition, featuring the work of Sookrah many other talented Canadians, is ideal for the facility.
“A.C. Leighton specialized in landscapes,” Kerluke said. “He painted a lot in that medium so it was just sort of a natural fit. The SCA approached us about having a show here and proposed some ideas. This was one of the ideas we felt really met with our mandate, our location and our history.”
For more information on the Leighton Art Centre, Gallery and Museum go to www.leightoncentre.org
