The Weyburn Art Gallery reopened following the close of the James Weir People’s Choice Awards, with a new exhibit entitled "Vicissitude", featuring an installation by multidisciplinary artist Monique Martin from Saskatoon, SK. The exhibit is a collaborative installation between Martin and Swedish artist Alexandra Hedberg, featuring over 18,000 of Martin's hand-made butterflies and a portion of the original 180sq. meter floor covering that was silk-screened by Alexandra. Their works combine to highlight a theme of transformation or change, particularly in the environment, and strive to encourage visitors to make more conscious decisions about their impact on the environment. Martin said she works in all different kinds of media such as paper, printmaking, clay, large installations, sculpture, and painting.
"I kind of do whatever I need to do to tell my story," she shared.
She said that prior to the opening of the Credit Union Spark Centre, where the gallery is located now in Weyburn, she had had an exhibition in the Allie Griffin art gallery. Her works have also been displayed prominently across Canada, and internationally in countries such as Greece, France, Sweden, and Portugal.
This new space in Weyburn, she said, is the perfect place for this exhibition.
"Because you're transformed by this new space, the Spark Centre is a transformation for your entire community, right? So this is the perfect place to do an exhibition about transformation, and you have a positive transformation in this new space. I mean, people can be more active with all of those great things, so I think to emphasize that, a transformation exhibition just makes sense," she explained.
Martin is booked for shows, including internationally, into 2026. One of her pieces is set to be projected on the Manhattan Bridge in New York in honour of Earth Day.
"But it's nice to do local community. You know, it feels like home. Even though it's not my home, it feels like home."
During the three-day installation period, where Monique Martin, her son, and City Curator Regan Lanning attributed an accumulative 80 hours of work towards the debut of ‘Vicissitude’, Martin managed to provide students from the Weyburn Comprehensive school with hands-on workshops on her silk-screening process. She also shared some ways that a pursuit of the arts could be made into a career.
“Being an artist is not always about having your art hang up on a wall somewhere that people come to see it. My son and I have a print-making business where I create the designs and he digitizes them and makes them into a template that we can use for screening. And it’s important that kids understand that art is valuable and needed in everyday aspects of life.”
The workshops with Weyburn students began months prior over Zoom. Students designed their own butterflies and sent them to Monique and her son to be prepared for silk-screening prior to their Weyburn visit. This offered students an inside look at a unique form of media that they would not have gotten to experience otherwise. However, this was not the first time Martin worked across great distances to interact with other artists.
“The way I met Alexandra is really interesting, I think it was on Instagram while I was searching hashtags for silk-screening, and I came across her studio and thought woah, she’s got this massive table and massive space, and when I looked deeper I could see her work was very much in line with my own. She was also creating these butterflies at the same time I was beginning to, except hers were dead butterflies... And together we decided to collaborate, which is how this exhibit was formed.”
The Installation was originally displayed in Rothenberg, Sweden, before being transported back to Canada for display in Weyburn. ‘Vicissitude’ will be on display at the Weyburn Art Gallery located in the Credit Union Spark Centre until June, and original silk-screened butterflies are available for purchase as mementos from Martin. Proceeds from the butterflies will go towards environmental funds and activism in Canada. While visiting the Exhibit, guests are encouraged to walk on the art and experience it to the fullest, but with Spring thaw coming they are reminded to please remove footwear before doing so.
Photo Gallery Below: