SAAG opens new exhibits

By Toyin Obatusin for the LETHBRIDGE HERALD on October 17, 2024.

Herald photo by Toyin Obatusin Artist Anton Golosov is showcasing his hand carved spoons, as this season's "Shop Feature Artist.

The Southern Alberta Art Gallery is showcasing the works of three amazingly talented, extremely forward thinking and mentally stimulated individuals in new exhibits.

They have produced works of art that represented acknowledging our past, understanding our present, and educating the population for the future.

The exhibition opened on Saturday with a talk and tour with the artists, Dana Buzzee, Migueltzina Solis, and Tania Willard, in the afternoon with the exhibition opening reception later on that evening.

In an interview Tuesday, associate curator and exhibitions manager Adam Whitford was able to draw a picture with his words depicting the success of the opening.

There were about individuals at the Talk and Tour, with more 100 present at the opening reception. City councillor Nick Paladino was also in attendance.

On the main floor of the Gallery, to your immediate right, visitors walk into a beautiful boutique of handmade gifts for that you can take home.

This is where the artist Anton Golosov showcased his hand carved spoons, as this season’s “Shop Feature Artist.”

The smoothness of each is a testament to the time put into creating each spoon. He utilizes wood harvested from “local species,” and uses hand tools only. His techniques were learned from Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.

Once visitors exit the beautiful, well organized and bright space of the shop, just a few steps to the right is Dana Buzzee’s “Incident Omens,” awaiting to envelop you with sombre, yet illuminating sounds.

“Her installation of plastic harness strap-work, chained, tiled surfaces, and virtual water features, creates an ethereal and inclusive space for reimagining utopian architectural spaces of healing, communing, and escapism.”, said Whitford.

“Buzzee describes the exhibition as if it was assembled far into the future by a retro-revivlaist cult, trying to make sense of the detritus and ancient plastics left are laser-cut “sigils” and hand tool-like “implements” with summoning ritual. This magic is needed to imagine the new bathhouses or hot springs, Buzzee speculates on future spaces outside of productivity and efficiency. These are places of communing and healing where all are invited to partake in the rituals of a future utopia.”

In the upper gallery visitors will be introduced to Tania Willard’s “Practices of suffusion.”

She uses mostly wind and fire elements and natural lighting to suffuse data onto a canvas, and into poetry. She uses berry juice from the berry bushes that she and her family would grow in B.C., to write and draw with.

The berries then oxidize as they dry, which changes the colour of the “paint.” The artist uses windsocks to signify the separation of land, by way of land use documents of land surveyors from the past.

“Practices of Suffusion exist in a spirit of reciprocation, responding to the earth’s communications in flames, hazes, and winds. Rather than approaching these forces as something to harness or control, Willard considers these natural forces as living collaborators,” says Whitford.

The library gallery, which is located on the main level of SAAG, showcases newer southern Alberta artists where Lethbridge native Migueltzinta Solís’ “Hole Tech”, was showcased.

“Hole Tech refers to the transportative possibilities of the ancient Mexican tezcatl, round pieces of obsidian glass used in ceremonial divination practices. A Chicanx artist, Solís draws upon the history and supernatural visioning properties of the tezcatl stone through photographs that reimagine indigenous and queer space-time,” says Whitford.

“Hole Tech” recognizes that photographs from the past can be reintroduced into the present to remind us of how far we have come. It’s recognizing that acceptance and acknowledgement of past restrictions can be seen through polished obsidian stones, which are round and used for divine purposes, almost like a reflective mirror looking into another world, or into the future. He has showcased the past and the present in the same image.

Milkweed is used to hold the “mud”, which is used to create a frame like substance that moulds with cracks within it as it dries, which frames the photographs.

Words and photos cannot describe the emotions that were depicted in the spaces where these educational pieces stood. The artists really knew what they wanted their audience to feel and acknowledge. And visitors will.

The execution of such is unexplainable. You just have to be there. The Exhibition is open until Jan. 11, Wednesday through Saturday.

Annual memberships are extremely inexpensive, and allow complimentary access to the gallery, as well as access to events and programs, with discounts at the shop and many more perks. Daily entry is between $5 and $10. The Gallery offers access to activities specifically for children, youth and adults. This location is also wheelchair accessible.