One gets a sense of time well spent.
This year’s offerings from the 2012 LU Visual Arts grads speak to fine focus: four years of defining then refining unique talents and preferences; and now these young artists are standing at exciting new thresholds to professional careers.
But currently they still share space in Definitely Superior’s first two galleries with an immediately apparent collective harmony. The 2012 Retrograduate Show is not crowded, overly busy or boisterous. Instead it is spacious, solid and inviting.
We soon recognize each artist’s hand-eye-mind work standing apart from the others as it should. Yet as mentioned, the cohesion of this exhibit in its presentation underscores how many ways artists can find individual places and future directions from shared student experiences now culminated.
Academic doors closing: individual windows opening.
“For these (former) students now becoming professional artists,” noted gallery director David Karasiewicz, “entering through those doors is important. Of course they want the experience of putting everything together, working together as a group.”
“It’s sometimes difficult,” he smiled, “with balancing everything out. It was up to them and they did an amazing job. They are the ones who directed themselves to put it together. They installed it, and are now hopefully looking at brightly prosperous futures. There is a lot of good work here.”
Art should and does speak to everyone differently.
For example, the acrylic-on-wooden-blocks sculpture Why Do You Build Me Up had this viewer knowing not to touch, but wanting nonetheless to rearrange (just to see the effect).
Inspiring is the printmaking intricacy: notice the delicate metal-etched lines of Birch Trees, Not by Choice and Feet of Crows rendered even more graceful by a wash of watercolour. Also give attention to the layers of acid-etching and patience it must have taken to produce The Three Graces.
What about the light copper-mesh sheath a female ghost-warrior might don in her warrior’s day-to-day life? Don’t Look At Me That Way speaks an altogether different language.
Utilize is a serene collection of eight ceramic pieces in hues of light blue-green, darker moss-green and a base of dark-earth, one fitting smoothly into the other; in the next gallery its compliment: a five-panel horizontal ceramic layout entitled Landscape.
The third gallery features some technology and established international artists who began from their spring-boards at Definitely Superior. Coffee table books are usually quite pricey.
We like to think of this as virtual coffee table books with pages and pages of glossy gorgeous full-colour artwork: wonderful to look at and, best of all, free!
“Superior Art: Local Art In A Global Context [E-Book] is recognition of 21 diverse accomplished professional contemporary artists in the region”, remarked Karasiewicz.
“Their work and writing goes out beyond the region, gets promoted through the Internet internationally. Presented by the Advanced Institute for Globalization and Culture and Definitely Superior, we see that great contemporary art is made in Thunder Bay.”
This and the LU Retrograd Show are up until June 9.
