Gallery Vertigo invites the public to two new exhibitions running for the month of August.
The Essence of Place and The First Metaphor are explorations of the point at which physical craft meets the world.
The Essence of Place is Vernon artist Akira Hanson’s exhibition of media painting, pastels, charcoal, printmaking, photography, fabric hangings, felted works, mixed collages and clay, while The First Metaphor is a joint exhibition between visual artist Alison Kubbos of Valemount and poet Kelly Shepherd of Kelowna.
Together, Shepherd and Kubbos have crafted a presentation of 14 linocuts and 14 matching poems, which explore the space where human spirit meets the spirits of the animal world.
“I have been viewing Hanson’s explorations with admiration since I came to Gallery Vertigo. It should start a powerful conversation with Shepherd and Kubbos’ exquisite shamanic work, which shares its physical immediacy and adds deep roots in craft and tradition and the playful departures from it Vertigo viewers have come to expect from Hanson,” said Harold Rhenisch, vice president of Vertigo’s board of directors.
“The First Metaphor is a brief journey beyond the ordinary and the conscious,” said Shepherd, who has worked as a construction worker in Northern Alberta and a kindergarten teacher in South Korea.
He has a master’s degree in religious studies, with a thesis on sacred geography, and an master’s in creative writing from UBC Okanagan, He also edits the environmental philosophy journal The Trumpeter.
“I admire the vision of these poems,” said Vernon writer and musician John Lent, praising, as he puts it, their “unpredictable and wonderful surprises of logic and sound.”
Formerly of Australia and now living in Valemount, Kubbos describes her work as presenting “an interior world where common definitions of what it means to be human are questioned, metamorphosed, and sometimes rejected,” and is most drawn to what she describes as “the expressive drama of the linocut and the woodblock print.”
Lent describes her work as having “the same strength, delicacy and respect as the poems, the same confident, humble poise in the face of this crazy world.”
Both shows are now available for viewing at Gallery Vertigo, 1-3001 31st St., downtown Vernon, Tuesday through Saturday noon to 4 p.m.
An opening reception takes place Saturday, Aug. 9 from 7 to 9 p.m. Refreshments will be served and the artists will be there to talk about their work.
The exhibitions runs until Aug. 23.
