Preparing for the Apocalypse (and being misunderstood): the Guild Hall’s ‘WROL’
WROL (Without Rule of Law) at the Guild is an all youth cast with no adult characters in this play about 7 girls preparing for the apocalypse
From the Arts
From The Arts columnist Nicole Bauberger is a painter, writer and performer living in Whitehorse.
Fantasy in Miniature
Fantasy in Miniature, brings a little magic. Sharing the Planet features butterflies & moths. Both are at Arts Underground.
Fresh Art for the Territory’s Newest Gallery
Gallery 22 takes wing with its first solo show. Dan Bushnell’s ravens fly through areas of layered colour or urban environments across the gallery’s white walls above Triple J’s Music shop. Straight black paint, sometimes with blended-in white highlights, carry the shapes and forms of Bushnell’s ravens. These ravens inhabit an abstract or urban environment, …
Artistic Announcements in Beads and Bells
Moses found nine other women to take on creating a dog blanket. The sewing group started up again in September, and they cut the materials out in October. She was happy she had such a good team of committed artists working with her. Each blanket takes many hours to design, bead and complete. They worked …
What Masks Reveal
At the Northern Front Studio this January, you can visit a variety of inner worlds in Whitehorse resident Claire Strauss’ exhibition of face-based wall sculptures, called The Mask Within. While this art show is part memorial for Strauss’ father, each piece creates its own whimsical world, incorporating a joy beyond the bounds of grief. Many …
Get Your Greens
Whet your appetite for lunch on Lillian Loponen’s new canvases at the Yukon College Hilltop Bistro this fall. The show, called Touch of Green: Enchanted Places, explores the colour green in washes and gestural brushstrokes. The show will be on display at the College’s fine dining lunch restaurant until mid December. Jacqueline Bedard, the Director …
Tobogganing, Adult-Style
The last time I was sledding with Casey Lee McLaughlin, she took me out at the knees. But then my dog rode her and her crazy carpet down the hill, like a snowy surfer, growling at the base of her neck. So that was okay. McLaughlin loves sledding. Her weapon of choice is a crazy …
Main Street Confidential
So… have you gone to the Yukon Government Main Administrative Building to see your art yet? I understand, life gets busy. But I bet you’re on Main Street once in awhile. There, you’ll find three Yukon Government offices that serve as public exhibition spaces from the Yukon Permanent Collection — art that belongs to the …
Two New Galleries and Many Small Fishies: Back streets and Main Street
Another one caught: Ceramic artist Sam Dickie went to Dawson City as Artist in Residence with KIAC and created a show called Stand in the Odd Gallery last fall. And then — like so many others — she fell prey to the spell of the Yukon. She and her partner and one-year-old daughter MacKenzie were …
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Inspiration From the Northern Seas
Glaciers calve into the ocean. A polar bear lounges and stretches. The rigging creaks as the canvas sails fill with wind. One walrus surfaces. And every night lasts 15 minutes longer, while dawn and dusk stretch on for hours. Whitehorse artist Jane Isakson digests these experiences, which she will develop into large-scale acrylic canvases over …
Smoke and Zola and emerging artists
Arts shows, installations and openings around Whitehorse. Including Emma Barr, Joyce Majiski, Jeanine & Paul Baker and more
Colour and Clay, Space and Story
From strong swipes of colour to a fairy tale in clay, Arts Underground offered a lot to look at this June. You only have until June 29 to see Shaping Space by Crag Lake artist Lawrie Crawford and Finding Balance by Tagish artist Sandra Grace Storey. In Shaping Space Crawford fills the front room with …
Rabbit and Raven
The Storey of Raven and Rabbit was originally planned for New Zealand. Sandra Grace Storey, born and raised in Whitehorse, spent her childhood summers in a cabin on Tagish Lake. At 18 she moved to Calgary for art school. Then she sailed to New Zealand. New Zealand has no ravens, no predatory mammals and little …
Freedom Opens for Stace Pshyk
It’s seldom that the Yukon Gallery clears its walls to feature one artist. Solo shows haven’t been the focus of the commercial gallery and frame shop. But gallery owner Brenda Stehelin has made space for Stace Pshyk’s work to take centre stage. Pshyk’s show, Freedom, marks his first solo show in the territory, though his …
Building a Show Together
Boats, fish and human figures cavort through the Yukon Art Society Gallery in Paul and Jeanine Baker’s Fired and Formed exhibition of collaborative works in metal and glass. In Autumn Wind, twisty spot-welded twigs cling to a burl to suggest a wind-blown tree. Torch-worked leaves scatter across the plinth as if blown off by that …
Yukon Past and Present
Bold strokes of the present, intriguing photographs of the past: two new shows at Arts Underground offer you the Yukon in stereo. Simon Gilpin displays After the Fire at Arts Underground until Feb. 23, and The Andover-Harvard Yukon Expedition, 1948, which will remain in place until early April. After the Fire Gilpin, who moved to …
Amber Church, Her Yukon Adventure
“She sat in silence and was overwhelmed by serenity.” “She embraced change.” “She faced the challenge.” Each of Whitehorse artist Amber Church’s newest paintings in Yukon Ho at the Yukon Artists @ Work Gallery until Feb. 12 includes one line of text, all of which began with “She.” The texts read something like encouraging affirmations …
Come and See Your New Art
Val Hodgson has painted a portrait of Bob Atkinson, Willow Bob, in oils. Atkinson is affectionately known as “Willow Bob” for the bent-willow chairs and other rustic furniture he makes. A portrait in oils is “usually reserved for the elite,” Hodgson observes in her artist statement. But in her portraits, she seeks “to celebrate the …
Expansive Mark-making and Education
What if a gallery contains only a few works, with room to breathe between them? Whitehorse artist Joyce Majiski’s new shows at Arts Underground offer a refreshing change from the busy salon-style hangings that characterizes many art presentations in the Yukon. Majiski offers two shows in the basement gallery until January 29; visit Gros Morne …
Through a Troubled Lens
Through the two photo-based art shows on now at the Yukon Arts Centre Public Gallery, curator Earl Miller asks us to look at the troubled side of the landscape. A well-worn ride-on park toy rusts at the forest’s cut edge; another image draws the viewer into a close-up view of double smokestacks on a coal-fired …
The Peace of Collecting
Stepping into the Solo Show Room at the Yukon Artists @ Work Co-operative, this month, feels wide open and peaceful. To create Stones Bones Berries: The Art of Collecting, Kerry Fletcher has removed the moveable walls that transform the sunroom into a picture gallery. She’s hung strings of rosehips in front of the windows and …
Painting & Play
A flock of whimsical little paintings hobnob on the walls of The Chocolate Claim – over coffee, so to speak. Janelle Hardy’s five- by seven-inch works on paper, all in identical white mattes and dark frames, are scattered across the wall like snowflakes. These simple pieces begin with drawing in ink. Shapes are then filled …
A Man of Many Materials REVIEW
Mark Preston’s show at Arts Underground is titled with his name, then subtitled with a list of materials. To Wood Stone Metal Cloth Sculpture Jewelry Painting could be added “paper, drawing and a kind of printmaking”. The show acts as a kind of portfolio of Preston’s various kinds of work. It includes two portfolios of …
Art Coming Out of the Woodwork
Some people see a cabinet, a wardrobe or even a bookshelf and see pieces of furniture. Others go beyond the basic use and see former trees, a forest of art, even in the most utilitarian piece of wood-worked furniture. That bookshelf was once a piece of cherry lumber, and a living cherry tree. We are …
From the Arts: Homeless Dreams
Entering Chris Reid’s Bunny Days show at the Yukon Arts Centre is like walking into a surreal story book. Buildings and slices of bread have chicken legs … in her drawings, skeletal cats pour coffee from automatic drip coffee makers … doll-like female figures, with crosses for eyes, stand limp-limbed in large rubber boots. In …
From the Arts: A Large Show of Small Works
Rosemary Piper’s work is familiar to Yukon audiences. She’s a faithful exhibitor at the Yukon Artists @ Work Cooperative Gallery while the North End Gallery shows her reproductions. She has shown in Skagway for many years, and can be counted on at the Cranberry Fair and the Fireweed Market. New Works 2010 offers viewers her …
Art Show Supports First Nations Youth Retreats
The view from the top of the Mackenzie Mountains has inspired a show of new artworks. The beauty of that setting also inspired the artists to donate their artworks to support a program that brings First Nation youth to the area for environmental education. There are three more days to check out the Dechenla Artist …
The Men Behind The Boys
The Guild will open its season this week with the Canadian premiere of The Boys, written by Kris Elgstrand. Elgstrand and Brad Dryborough, the play’s director and Elgstrand’s “longtime production partner,” agree that it’s a simple play. With a lot going on. Each of the “three characters, in one room, in real time” has one …
From the Arts: Beautiful New Additions to Your Gallery
In the lobby of the Yukon Government Administration Building, just behind the library, you can see this year’s eight new additions to the Yukon Permanent Art Collection. The collection “belongs to the people of the Yukon,” Tourism and Culture Minister Elaine Taylor stressed in her speech at the show’s opening. The show, entitled Capture, includes …
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Holding Still
Adad Hannah’s Cuba Still (Remake) takes video installation to a minimalist place. Videos are usually moving pictures with sound. But Hannah asks his models to stand in silence. Quiet ambient clicking sounds make only understated use of the medium’s sound capabilities. Like Agnes Martin’s minimalist canvases of pencil lines and thinned white paint, the strength …
From the Arts: Nourishing Colour and Wit
The Colour Show, 5 artists working in 5 different mediums. Lynne Sofiak, Jeanine Baker, Daphne Mennell, Lise Merchant, and Mary Beattie
Terra Firma’s Artist Show Their Passion Projects at Gallery 22
The Terra Firma Art Company on Third Avenue in Whitehorse bills itself as your “promotional product company”.They put images, logos and text onto products, mainly garments, helping businesses and teams brand themselves. Men of Terra Firma showcases the artists behind this commercial endeavour. Terra Firma workers Chris Blaker, Adam Green, Matty Marnik, Allen Moffatt and …
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Outside the Frame, Outside the Lines
Karen Rhebergen has sprung her batik paintings from their frames. They hang at angles from the walls at Arts Underground, so light shines though them. The colours resound. They’re larger than much of her previous work, giving the artist’s commitment to a loose and gestural mark a wider field to play in. Let me explain …
Love and Be Loved
A feeling of human warmth beams from the eyes of the people in Norm Hamilton’s black and white portraits on the walls in the Guild’s Other Room. Portraiture, for him, is more than capturing an image. It’s about “capturing the essence of that person.” Environmental portraiture is key to his work. This means sitting down …
7 Reasons to Buy Art in the Yukon
This article is written for visitors to the Yukon. Most Yukoners already know this stuff. But I hope it will prove entertaining or informative for Yukoners as well. 1.Okay, really? There is only one real reason to buy art. It’s something like love at first sight, when you see a piece of art and something …
A Wall of Colour Tells a Tale of Faro
Young laughter rings out in the Faro Kettle coffee shop in the Recreation Centre, as the community celebrates the unveiling of a new mural that brightens the wall above the tables. The mural uses cartoon-like solid areas of colour with black outlines and a rainbow of colours spans the sky, reminiscent of a Ted Harrison …
Luxuriate in the Moss
Most Yukoners love the microcosm of moss and little alpine plants that contrasts with our grand vistas. The snow has not yet melted from that rich soft fabric. Lyn Fabio’s verdant veerings gives us a preview. Light ochre, dark greens, dull greens, and glimpses of red root the show in a limited, unifying palette. This …
Realistic landscape and whimsical collage
There’s a delightful new show at Gallery 22 of landscape, portrait and abstract artworks by four women with four different styles. While the title of the show, Four Women àla carte, suggests a culinary element, there is no food in sight. Nevertheless, these four women give you a lot to chew on. The featured artists …
Stories Move Through Still Films
When you go to see Still Films at the Yukon Arts Centre, bring your imagination. Better yet, bring a friend and tell each other stories there, in the gallery, spinning off the images in front of you like jazz musicians. Curator Lance Blomgren explores many ideas of story in this show. Blomgren is a writer …
Hot New Art Band
There’s a new jazz trio out at Crag Lake. But instead of sound waves, they’re jammin’ in glass and steel. Rusty Redbrun (Paul Baker), Burny Hüle (Ken Anderson) and Ptina Green (Jeanine Baker) aim to have 20 works for their collaborative show opening next week at Gallery 22 in downtown Whitehorse. “We just decided to …
Yukon Artists Find a Common Thread in Multitudes
I was keen to see Multitudes, a show at Arts Underground by artists from the Studio Gallery Association, because it’s a theme I’ve seen in other Yukon artists’ work. People who think about Yukon art often wonder how to characterize it; to a large extent, it’s the product of a diverse group of individuals rather …
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Looking In 3 Directions
Walking into Arts Underground these days, an impression of bright colours swirls around you. White, tan and black play their parts, but many solid areas of bright colour in all the artists’ work tie the show together. Alice Park-Spurr, Jane Isakson and Marlene Collins have teamed up to create a show called Transformations. The first …
Maps Exploring Paint
Jesse Devost’s current show at Arts Underground, the grass is greener, maps out new places with paint. As a whole, the exhibition encourages us to think about about the way we use space, crowd it, and pass through it. Devost has only been painting since 2007. Trained in geography and having worked 10 years as …
Looping Time
The overhead lights are dim in the Yukon Arts Centre Gallery. As you step inside, a flickering tells you you’re entering the realm of video. All three shows currently in the gallery are video-based. One way to look at video is to see it as a kind of photography or drawing, with time added as …
Approachable Artists in the Tombstones
The Yukon’s beauty stuns. And yet even in this context the Tombstone Territorial Park stands out. It’s a kind of iconic distillation of the Yukon’s beauty. This summer, you’ll be able to see that landscape through the eyes of 10 artists, through the Art Magic in Tombstone program coordinated by Friends of Dempster Country and …
Dreamers Awake
If I did not believe that reason could bring something of value to the imaginative process I would not bother writing about art. I offer my observations in order to beat down a path in the snow to the art shows, to encourage my readers to see them, and to offer language as a tool …
Art Galore at YAC
The Yukon Arts Centre teems with art this month. You can check out the ATCO Play Your Part Art Contest, Anna Crawford’s photographic exhibit North, and Surface,a show of this year’s additions to the Yukon Permanent Art Collection. As part of its support of cultural activities during the Arctic Winter Games, ATCO invited students in …
100 Steps Further In
Faro-based artist Jackie Irvine set herself a challenge. What if she painted one painting a day for 100 days? Starting October 1, 2011 she did just that. And every day, even if she was stranded in Whitehorse without her acrylic paints, and had to go buy oil pastels to do it, she kept her commitment. …
Invitation to Inner Journeys
The two solo shows by Louise and Janelle Hardy on display at the Yukon Arts Centre this fall invite viewers into the artists’ personal, emotional worlds. Both of them move into and through grief and heartbreak. Interestingly, this makes a place for viewers to reflect on their own experiences of the darker times. The Trousseau …
Mechanical Improvisation
People like to ask: “What is Yukon art?” Such a small population generates little by way of trends or movements. Most artists are, to one degree or another, in a class by themselves. Philippe LeBlond is one such artist. He takes his engineering background, his experience as a bike mechanic and his commitment to reuse …
Bears and Snotsicles at Gallery 22
The strength of Beyond the Outhouse, a show of acrylic paintings by Kelsey Elaisson at Gallery 22, lies in its irreverent but unabashed embrace of very familiar northern images. The vigour and commitment of his painting style carries them off. You will see portraits of bears and First Nations people. A waterfall and an eagle. …
From the Arts: A Journal in Layers
As a member of the Yukon Artists @ Work cooperative, I was curious to see a solo show by Dawson City artist Mary Dolman. Viewing her work at the gallery over the years, I had noticed her style evolve. She layers acrylic paint, often in tendrils, to weave a paint surface that’s personal and alive. …
From the Arts: Squatter’s Sketchbook
As you enter the exhibit They call us Squatters at the Yukon Arts Centre Gallery,four large pieces on the back wall catch your eye with their high contrast. Each piece is about four feet square. They trace anecdotal images with dramatic light and shadow. The blacks are dark and rich, shaded, inky. Aha, I said …
From the Arts: Stories Still Waiting to be Told
Ruth Qualliarialik Nuilliak’s “Tundra” is the first thing you see of the show Nunavut’s Culture on Cloth at the Yukon Arts Centre. It transfixed me. The tundra is so hard to paint, with its patches of vegetation, its incredible close-up detail. Nuilliak has taken it down to an abstract gesture which evokes its complexity in …
Lots to look at
Each of Meghan Hildebrand’s paintings sets out a rich site within which your imagination can roam. Let me invite you into “The Royal Game of Us,” just inside the doors of the Yukon Arts Centre’s Public Gallery. Stylized, cut out collaged doglike animals, and possibly ponies, leap across the canvas, legs extended in opposite directions. …
Beyond Therapy
Beyond Therapy Jenna Walchuk has a story to tell. Years ago, she was an addict. She’s been clean for many years, yet the need to go back to the emotions she remembers from that “time of such intellectual darkness” structures her art show, and her investigations in paint. The story leads us around the Gallery …
Art Glass Blossoms in Downtown Juneau
May’s “First Friday” walk in Juneau, Alaska included 10 art openings and events downtown in the state capital. At the Canvas Community Art Studio and Gallery on Seward Street, a group of five Southeast Alaskan glass artists offered a whimsical show that included a wide range of glass-working techniques. Beyond the Pane: Artistry in Glass included …
Mary Bradshaw YAC’s New Director
Mary Bradshaw is the new director of the Yukon Arts Centre Public Art Gallery. This is a new position at the gallery that artists should know about. It used to be called “director/curator”, but the new job will remain “pretty similar in a lot of ways to what Scott Marsden did,” says Bradshaw. This includes …
Feast at the Yukon Arts Centre
Michelle Moreau and her potter partner Patrick Royle want to assure purchasers of local pottery that no glaze used on Royle’s or any other local potter’s dinnerware contains lead. It’s bad for the potter working with it, too ….. Phyllis Fiendell’s wheel-thrown, handmade stoneware is on display in the plexiglass boxes in the Yukon Arts …
