 Top News - May 14, 2005 |
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Jason Franson/Gazette
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MESSAGE AND MEDIUM - Top, Linda Wilder examines photographs of Canada's spectacular northern lights. Bottom, Dwight Roscoe's graceful blue heron was sculpted from drift wood. |
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Summer shines through at Art Beat
Sculpture, photography and paint display all the colours and textures of Canada's warm months |
By Susan Jones
Staff Writer
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There's often a wooden appearance to a blue heron when it stands perfectly still beside the water but artist Dwight Roscoe lent an oddly life-like quality to his great blue heron, which is made entirely of driftwood
The sculpture, on display at Art Beat Gallery, is stained steely-blue and Roscoe painted the bird's shoulders with a blaze of black. The frayed pieces of wood curl up slightly, as if the bird is alert, and poised for take -off. "Dwight searches for driftwood along the shores of the lakes near his Manitoba home. He then combines them with cedar and various hardwoods and rock to create his birds," said gallery owner Sandra Outram. "He has stained the wings that blue-grey colour, and the beak is carved. It has the illusion that it is poised ready to catch a fish."
Roscoes's sculpture is just one of the summery pieces of art at the gallery this month, where the featured exhibit is Lens Work by photographers Wade Pike, Corey Hochachka, Dave Johnston, Wally Bauman and Mike Montana.
Hochachka, a St. Albert photographer, used his camera to provide a different focus for the postcard view normally seen of the Maligne Canyon near Jasper. A naked female figure is crouched inside the cathedral-shaped rocks with the rocks curving protectively around her.
The grandeur of the rocks makes the figure appear tiny and, as the work's title suggests, In Utero.
Looking at it, several questions came to mind. Why was the figure crouched there? Was she really there, or did Hochachka place her there via computer manipulation? If she was there, were are the hundreds of tourist that are always at Maligne Canyon?
Photographer Wade Pike's work has a painterly quality to it, in part because it is printed onto canvas, but also because he has manipulate the images.
In his Gardeners' Paradise, the flowers are brighter and more vivid that in real life but he used a different approach in Rodeo, where the faces of the cowboy and the spectators are blurred.
Gardeners' Paradise is pretty, but Rodeo is more interesting artistically. The cowboy wears chaps with a sparkling mauve fringe, that at first glance is barely noticeable in the photo. As you stare at the work, the wisps of pinky-purple become more obvious, almost as if a halo of light is surrounding the bucking man.
One new painting of poppies by Shirley Cordes-Rogozinsky, shows the depth and the versatility of this St. Albert artist. In the past Cordes-Rogozinsky has painted large abstracts that appear almost like landscapes. The poppies are sensually coloured, with layers and layers of paint, so the petals are soft and textured.
Lens Work will be at Art Beat Gallery, at 26 St. Anne Street, until the end of May.
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