“Sooner or Later” community exhibit opens Friday at Comox Valley Art Gallery
An opening reception for Sooner or Later, a group show featuring more than 200 works by local artists, will take place Friday, June 3, 7 p.m. at the Comox Valley Art Gallery.
The community exhibition is a joint project of CVAG and the Comox Valley Community Arts Council. The opening reception is one of the many events taking place in Courtenay that evening as part of the Elevate Arts Festival.
Sooner or Later is a collection of self-portraits in a variety of formats, including painting, sculpture, photography, video and more.
“Sooner or later every artist makes a self-portrait,” says Dallas Stevenson, executive director for the community arts council. “This exhibition gives viewers an opportunity to see a remarkable array of styles, techniques and ways of defining the term ‘self-portrait.’”
Many artists have contributed two self-portraits; one from an early stage of their careers and one that is current.
“Self-portraits involve looking inward, but they also reflect artists’ lookout to the world around them,” said CVAG curator Angela Somerset. “An artist’s representation of self may change over time. It can be quite revealing to compare self-portraits from different periods in an artist’s life.”
The exhibition will run June 1-30. Throughout, make art stations will be set up at the gallery and visitors will be invited to contribute their own work to the wall of self-portraits in the community space.
There will also be an opportunity for people to create their own self-portraits on Saturday, June 4 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at CVAG’s monthly Make Art Saturday.
This month’s all-ages participatory workshop will be part of Elevate Arts Festival, and the theme will be contemporary self-portraiture.
Work produced at the workshop may be added to the self-portrait display in the CVAG community space.
CVAG is hosting another event related to the Elevate Arts festival on Thursday, June 2.
Women and Words, an evening of prose and poetry by readers identifying as female, will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. To participate, please contact Medwyn McConachy and mcconachy.medwyn@gmail.com
