Work of the Week

Every year on April 15, World Art Day celebrates artistic creativity and promotes taking part in art. 
 

"World enough, and time" by Ken Macklin is a meditation on the simultaneous nature of time. A skyward reaching column supports three spheres, representing the historic past, the complex present, and our collective hopes and dreams for the future.

• Translated into emotive colour, the past is expressed through earth tones that evoke the quietude and strength of the natural environment.
• The present is expressed through maroon-red and green, evoking the present concern for the environment, as well as denim blue to symbolize manual labour.
• The future, reaching towards both hope for humanity and awe for the greater context of the cosmos, is expressed through rich black, grey, blue, and silver.

As part of Canada's 150^th anniversary, The Works International Visual Arts Society's Art & Design in Public Places Program (The Places) commissioned five original landmark sculptures along Capital Boulevard which lead to the Alberta legislature. This Project was made possible in part by the Government of Canada, with matching investments from partners: the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (AFA), and the City of Edmonton; and support from the Downtown Business Association, and The Works Society. In addition, all five sculptures were acquired as part of the AFA Art Collection.

• learn more about the Capital Boulevard Legacy Public Art Project - Canada 150

If you are in Edmonton, we encourage you to check out and marvel at the sculpture on Site 5, 108 Street between 103 Avenue and 104 Avenue. (You can also view it online using the button below.)

About the Artist:

Ken Macklin is one of several constructivist sculptors who emerged in Edmonton during the 1980s. Macklin earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts with Distinction from the University of Alberta in 1978 and studied advanced sculpture at St. Martins School of Art in London, England in 1979/80. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally, and has received numerous awards for his work. Macklin is renowned for the creation of large-scale, abstract sculptures.

Image description

The dark grey steel column sculpture supports three spirals. Each spiral steel with woven wire mesh has different colors - grey, blue and orange, red and green.

Happy Canada Day!
 

This week's Work of the Week is Canadian Landscape by Carole Bondaroff. 

Get out and explore this beautiful country – like this mountain scene depicted in Canadian Landscape!

About the Artist: Carole Bondaroff

Carole Bondaroff was born in Montreal, Quebec. She holds diplomas from the Banff School of Fine Arts (painting, 1969) and the Sir George Williams University in Montreal (fine art, 1971), a BFA (fine art, 1973) and a BA (art education, 1975) from the Nova Scotia School of Art and Design in Halifax, as well as an Alberta Teacher’s Licence. In 1976, she moved to Calgary, Alberta where she worked as the Visual Arts Coordinator for the City of Calgary’s Cultural Resource Centre.

Bondaroff is an artist and art educator who has travelled the world to practice her watercolour painting and etching. Her excursions have taken her to Europe and Mexico and across Canada and the United States, including to the Arctic and to the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. 

Her work has been frequently exhibited in Canada as well as in Japan and Spain. She has donated works in support of local and international charities and is represented in many corporate and public collections, including the Royal Palace in Monaco and private collections the world over. 

This week’s Work of the Week is Sea of Fools by Angus Wyatt.
 

Today is the first day of April and that means it’s April Fools’ Day! This artwork by Angus Wyatt depicts multiple images of the classic ‘fool’ or jester.
 

The exact origins of April Fools’ Day is unclear, but according to History.com:

“Some historians speculate that April Fools’ Day dates back to 1582, when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, as called for by the Council of Trent in 1563. In the Julian Calendar, the new year began with the spring equinox around April 1. People who were slow to get the news or failed to recognize that the start of the new year had moved to January 1 and continued to celebrate it during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes and were called “April fools.”

This week’s Work of the Week is Ox and Cart by George Markel.
 

Today is the Lunar New Year and the start of the Year of the Ox. Happy New Year to everyone who is celebrating today!

About the Artist: George Markel (1910-2006)

Folk sculptor George Markel was born in Southey, Saskatchewan. Raised in the rural life, he married in 1932 and farmed with his wife until 1948, when he moved to the province’s capital city for work with Regina Power.
 

After retiring at age 65, Markel moved to Medicine Hat where he devoted himself to sculpture depicting, sometimes humorously, the rural life he knew so well, with a particular focus on horses and pigs. Markel’s whimsy and imagination also prompted him to create sculptures with titles such as Sheeposaur in a body of work built from found materials such as jewelry, fur, branches, buttons, beads, fabrics, and toys.

Explaining how he came to be a folk artist, Markel wrote that one day around 1975, he was shopping and saw a china horse sculpture with a harness on it. The price was over $80—about $350 in 2016. “That was too much for me to pay,” he wrote. “Later on I saw a horse just like the first one in a different store, but they had a Red River Cart with the horse. So I asked him if he would sell them separately. He said he would. So I said, ‘O.K., I will buy the horse. I will try to make the cart.’ So, that’s the way I started making carts and wagons, sleighs, and finally I started carving horse, cows, and bulls.”

Markel participated in numerous group exhibitions, including the Medicine Hat Exhibition and Stampede Visual Arts Show, Buffalo Days in Regina, shows at Canadian Art Galleries in Calgary, and Expo ’86. His works abide in the collections of the Royal Alberta Museum, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Canadian Museum of History.

This week’s Work of the Week is Song of the Wolf by Jeannette Northey.
 

The first full moon of 2021 was yesterday. According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, the first full moon of the year is known as the Wolf Moon because January was a time when wolves were heard howling more often.

This artwork is part of the online exhibition Unchartered. This virtual exhibition was curated by Ashley Slemming, through the support of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling Exhibition Program (TREX) in partnership with the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie and the Alberta Society of Artists.

This week’s Work of the Week is Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, 1966 by celebrated photographer Yousuf Karsh in honour of His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh who passed away on April 9, 2021 at the age of 99.
 

The Duke was a great supporter of arts and was the royal patron of 35 arts and culture organizations around the world. Albertans are invited to sign an online book of condolence, available at www.alberta.ca/prince-philip-memorial.cfm.

This photographic portrait of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip is by world-renowned, Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh. It belongs to the Provincial Art Collection, which has over 120 photographs by Karsh, known as the Karsh Collection. The Provincial Art Collection is not part of the AFA’s collection, but one of several provincial collections the Art Collections staff help manage and preserve.

About the Artist: Yousuf Karsh, 1908-2002

Yousuf Karsh was born to Armenian parents in the Ottoman Empire, present-day Turkey, in 1908. He was sent to Canada by his family in 1923 as a refugee of the Armenian genocide and went to live with his uncle in Sherbrooke, QC, who was a portrait photographer. Karsh opened his first studio in Ottawa in 1932.

During his storied career, he held 15,312 sittings, produced over 370,000 negatives, and left an indelible artistic and historic record of the men and women who shaped the 20th century, including Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Grace Kelly and Queen Elizabeth II.

This artwork combines horse hair and glass to create a form that suggests a pill and something flowing out from it.
 

The artist was inspired by the connection between the two materials: both fragile and fine, but also strong and functional. Echoing one another aesthetically, this partnership inspired her in new ways of looking at ancient materials.

Through its use of organic and traditional materials, this work hints at the human form, beauty, and the pharmaceutical industry .

About the artist

Carissa Baktay is a sculptor from Calgary, currently working between Canada and Iceland. Working with glass since 2008, Carissa earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Glass from the Alberta University of the Arts (formerly the Alberta College of Art & Design), studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and received her Master in Glass Art and Science from VICARTE Research Unit (Vidro e Cerâmica para as Artes - glass and ceramics for the arts) in Portugal.

She has participated in Snow and Ice sculpting residencies in Norway, was accepted to the 2011/2012 Living Arts Center Fellowship in Glass, and has attended multiple residencies in Iceland, Finland and Norway. Her work has been featured in exhibitions and publications in Canada and internationally.

Carissa was an AFA grant recipient in 2018-19 for the Visual Arts and New Media Individual Project Funding. Also, she was successful in having her artwork acquired through the Art Acquisitions by Application program in 2021 to be part of AFA Art Collection, which will help increase the visibility of her artwork throughout the province, including through Work of the Week.

Art Acquisitions by Application

Did you know that Albertan artists can apply to have their artwork acquired by the AFA through the Art Acquisitions by Application program?

The next deadline is April 1! Review the guidelines if you’re interested in submitting your artwork to have it be considered for acquisition.

Image description

The sculpture is a white rounded spherocylinder capsule shaped like a pill attached to a white wall. Long black hair flows approximately two-thirds down out of the capsule. In the background is the grey shadow of the hair and capsule on the wall. 

The Conquered Mountain print was acquired by purchase from the artist in 1973. There were six prints acquired from the artist at this time 1973.003.001 – 1973.003.006. These were very early acquisitions into the AFA collection as they were acquired in March 1973 and the art collection was formed in September 1972. We can't wait to celebrate AFA's Art Collection 50th anniversary.
 

The artist created a constructed painting with a similar title in 1991, Clearcut: Conquered Mountain – revisiting the theme of man’s intervention on nature and essentially creating a “manufactured landscape”. The AFA acquired the painting in 1995.

Travelling Exhibition 

Curated for the AFA's Travelling Exhibition Program (TREX) by The Art Gallery of Grande Prairie - Northwest Alberta, Conquered Mountain is currently on display in its "Fantastic Worlds" exhibit until March 27, 2022.

• TREX strives to ensure every Albertan is provided the opportunity to enjoy fully developed exhibitions in schools, libraries, health care centres and smaller rural institutions and galleries throughout the province

We welcome you to view it through the AFA's Virtual Museum or see it in person at the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie.

About the artist

John K. Esler is well-known in the Calgary arts community and has helped to raise the profile of printmaking in the province.

He taught at the University of Calgary in 1968 until the 1980s. He encouraged his students to experiment, to make art with a mind open to unexpected possibilities.

His artwork is exhibited widely throughout Canada and abroad and he is represented in many public and private collections, including the AFA Art Collection.

Art Acquisitions by Application

Did you know that Albertan artists can apply to have their artwork acquired by the AFA through the Art Acquisitions by Application program?

The next deadline is April 1! Review the guidelines if you’re interested in submitting your artwork to have it be considered for acquisition.

Image description

The abstract etching printed on paper is split into two halves: on the bottom half, various squares and rectangles in tones of yellow, grey and black are squeezed into a forced perspective that creates a path towards the bluish green mountains on the top half. The grey mountain tops are sutured to the top of the image by criss-cross black strings.

This week's Work of the Week is After the Theatre by Raymond Theriault in honour of World Theatre Day, which is on March 27!
 

The depiction of theatregoers milling about after the show feels like a distant memory as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to shutter theatres around the world. Filing out of the venue after the show, discussing the best (or worst) parts of the performance, and deciding where to go for a post-show cocktail or bite to eat, the rituals that take place after the theatre contribute to the experience one has when they take in a live theatre show, an experience we know is surely missed. 
 

For this year's World Theatre Day, now a full year into the pandemic, the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT) asked Canadian theatre creators and audiences what they miss the most about live theatre. Watch the responses:

This video was produced in partnership with l’Association des théâtres francophones du Canada (ATFC) and the Playwrights Guild of Canada (PGC).

About World Theatre Day

Created in 1961 by UNESCO, World Theatre Day is celebrated annually on March 27 by theatre communities around the globe. The impetus behind World Theatre Day is to honour and further the goal of UNESCO’s International Theatre Institute (ITI) to celebrate the power of theatre to serve as an indispensable bridge-builder for mutual international understanding and peace as well as to promote and protect cultural diversity and identity in communities throughout the world.

Tomorrow is the first day of spring! To celebrate the official end of winter, please enjoy this artwork by Kenneth Samuelson simply titled Spring.
 

The March equinox, which marks the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere, occurs when the sun crosses the equator line, heading north in the sky. The northern hemisphere is now beginning to tilt towards the sun, meaning more sunlight and warmer temperatures!
 

About the Artist: Kenneth Samuelson

Kenneth Samuelson is a painter and printmaker. His early printmaking work had a highly graphic style and concentrated on the derivative abstraction of the surrounding landscape. In his more recent work, Samuelson captures detailed scenes of the landscape using oils and watercolours. For Samuelson, painting is directly tied to memory, and he paints as a way to capture and remember the inspirational moments of light and colour in the landscape.

Samuelson majored in design at the Alberta College of Art and Design (now the Alberta University of the Arts), and studied printmaking at the University of Calgary. Samuelson was co-owner of a graphic design studio for a decade, and from 1968 to 1996, he was on faculty at the Alberta College of Art and Design, teaching drawing, design, rendering, letter form, and watercolour. Shortly after his retirement, he was awarded Lecturer Emeritus.

Samuelson has exhibited widely and was a member in the Alberta Society of Artists, the Manisphere Group of Artists, the Canadian Society of Graphic Art, and with Canadian Painter-Etchers and Engravers. His work is in the collection of the Canada Council Art Bank, the Calgary-Edmonton Jubilee Auditoriums, the A.C. Leighton Foundation, Shell Canada, Gulf Oil, and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.