THUNDER BAY - After more than 20 years in the Eaton’s building, Definitely Superior Art Gallery has found a new home in a familiar neighbourhood, and executive artistic director, David Karasiewicz, said the new 19-foot ceilings are just the beginning of the heights he hopes the gallery will reach.
“Envisioning what the future holds is unlimited really,” Karasiewicz said.
Definitely Superior Art Gallery will be moving into its new home at the former Cumberland Cinema later this year. The more than 3,700 square-foot space will allow the gallery to expand its programming and take advantage of partnerships established over decades in the downtown.
“It transforms our programming into something more because we can take in installations and artwork that previously, even in our space that was pretty industrial, we can go that much further,” Karasiewicz said. “I don’t think there’s anything we can’t do and that’s pretty cool as far as an art perspective.”
Karasiewicz added it is important the gallery remain in the downtown north core because it still holds events in the area and now it will have even more of a street presence.
“We’ve been downtown for 30 years, we actually helped develop the downtown for the last 30 years, and all our partnerships have been developed in the spaces and with the people that are there,” he said. “That is kind of a tie that you don’t want to disconnect from.”
For more than 20 years, Def Sup was located in the former Eaton’s Building until it went up for sale earlier this year.
“Originally, it was under sale by U-Haul and it was a year in the works and as it got closer to the date, everyone got evicted from the building, then the deal fell through and everyone was scattering looking for homes,” Karasiewicz said. “We are fortunate that this spot is actually ideal.”
The space at the former theatre is being leased by Def Sup and it is working with Realty Holdings to transform the space into a working gallery.
The main gallery space will be the lobby area, but there are also former projection rooms, storage rooms, and a mezzanine that can be utilized. The theatres themselves are not part of the lease, but Karasiewicz said he would like to see one or two of the large spaces be added to the gallery sometime in the future.
For now, they will continue to work on painting, adding walls to the main gallery space, and installing track lighting.
The space also contains a lot of concrete, which can provide more strength for larger and more extensive installations.
“For an art gallery like ours, this is like the perfect opportunity because it explores artists to all kinds of unimaginable exploration that you don’t normally have,” Karasiewicz said. “Warehouses are probably the key element to really cool things happening.”
Karasiewicz said the gallery is hoping to hold a gala opening in late fall before the Christmas season.
