It may be four days since the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup to the Boston Bruins to end the hockey season, but the game, and aftermath, is still on everyone’s mind.
Hockey, among other images, will be part of an exhibition that gets away from Vancouver and travels through the Okanagan this summer.
Curated by Headbones owner/artist Julie Oakes, the exhibition, entitled Okanagan Eyes Okanagan Wise Okanagan-ise, opens Friday and is a sort of homecoming for the gallery and Oakes, who now runs the gallery with partner/curator Richard Fogerty.
The exhibition features Okanagan artists who have at one time either been a part of Headbones when it first set up shop in Vernon more than a decade ago or are new to the gallery since it reopened at its new location on Old Kamloops Road earlier this year.
“In the Okanagan, the sun and slopes have not distracted the artistic focus, but nourished it,” said Oakes. “There is something to be said for living the good life here in la-la land where Okanagan Eyes Okanagan Wise Okanagan-ise is just the tip of the bountiful cornucopia of creativity.”
The exhibition is varied, from Glenn Clark’s hockey portrait of the artist with his two nephews wearing North Okanagan Knights jerseys to David Alexander’s lively landscapes to the enigmatic photogravure by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller
There’s also Steve Mennie’s work featuring realist ease with abstract meanderings, Byron Johnston’s quirky manipulation of quotidian life and the heavy metal originality of Geert Maas’, Doug Alcock’s or (combined with glass) David Montpetit’s and Bruce Taiji’s work.
“It all adds up to a strong contemporary hit,” said Oakes.
Also mixed into the exhibition is Carolina Sanchez de Bustamante’s Eye for an Eye, Ann Kipling’s drawings, Leonhard Epp’s ceramic narrative, the painting panache of Joice M. Hall and John Hall, Carl St. Jean’s cabinetry, Richard Suarez’s constructions, Jim Kalnin’s melding of architectonics with nature and Heidi Thompson’s grand colour field work.
Okanagan Eyes Okanagan Wise Okanagan-ise opens with a reception at Headbones Gallery, 6700 Old Kamloops Rd., Friday from 6 to 9 p.m. Jazzing it up during the reception will be Jen Dyck on keyboard, Bill Lockie on bass and Steve Mennie on drums. The show runs to Aug. 20. Call 250-542-8987 for more information.
