The attention of artists to elements in their work is often a result of a story as fascinating as the artwork itself. Such is the case with the latest artist presenters at the Humboldt and District Gallery and their respective exhibits.
The Gallery welcomed Bonnie Conly, who spoke about her display, “An Uncomfortable Mess,” and Cheryl Andrist addressing “Fleeting Beauty,” her contribution.
Andrist comes from Redvers in the province’s southeast, and she recalled a chance encounter with a one-time local artist, wood carver Mike Saretsky, that opened her eyes to the possibility of her becoming an artist.
Her work is a multi-disciplinary exercise in fabric and stitch work, painting and found materials such as feathers and fur, to produce butterfly replicas. Andrist says she meticulously researches her subjects – the species, the characteristics, the colours – and then goes to work fashioning them with fabric materials she is given.
“Butterflies are a part of nature, and I’m a nature buff,” Andrist confesses. “I love focusing on anything natural. I started off exploring mushrooms, and I’ve done animals, but butterflies and flowers are the two that I really like. I connected them together because of the fabric I was given.”
Cheryl was donated a large quantity of fabric pieces, and by exploring various stitching techniques and paints, she created her winged replicas. It’s important for her to approach these representations of such delicate creatures with reverence, she feels.
“I researched the butterflies and tried to present them in a way that recognizes we are losing them.”
Her concern for the loss of butterflies, bees and many other facets of the natural world draws her to the study and the artistic representation of those that remain.
Bonnie Conly similarly is drawn to the natural world of the tumbleweed, not so much by their rarity. Rather, it’s their prolific and mobile nature that caught her eye on a trip on the eastern fringe of Alberta, when a lineup of the wayward weeds was caught in a fence line parallel to the highway.
She stopped to gather a few samples to study them further, and eventually, they spurred her on to her collected works. The experience happened at the height of the pandemic when isolation was on everyone’s minds. During those turbulent months, events unfolded in the news that played on her psyche and found expression in her work.
“The first image that hit my head, because I’ve done a lot of work in immigration, was about the migrants that walked from and central American to the States or on rafts floating on the Mediterranean. I thought the weeds tumbling, rolling and moving, like migrants trying to get somewhere, only to get blocked up and stuck in a fence or a refugee camp.”
The isolation of the Covid lockdown gave time for more social issues to percolate into the artwork and the stunning near 3D representation in the sketches. The colours of the pictures follow a triad colour wheel, illuminating the idea of individual differences and the choice to accept or reject inclusion.
Parts of the exhibit are actual tumbleweeds, painted white with highlights, taking a familiar plains icon and elevating it to something startling and different in the viewers’ perceptions.
The assembled patrons asked questions and visited with the artists into the evening.
Stop by the Gallery to view both “Fleeting Beauty” and “An Uncomfortable Mess” on display now.