The reopened Surrey Art Gallery will celebrate its 45th anniversary by showcasing art from South of the Fraser.
Pre-booked, self-guided tours of the new exhibition Where We Have Been will begin Saturday, Sept. 19, nearly six months after the gallery was closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The art show marks 45 years of collecting, exhibiting and artmaking in Surrey, with more than 40 works – paintings, photography, sculpture and video installations – from the gallery’s permanent collection at Bear Creek Park.
Some of the gallery’s oldest acquisitions will be shown alongside some of its most recent, says Rhys Edwards, Surrey Art Gallery’s assistant curator.
“The range of voices on display speaks to the diversity of artmaking throughout this region’s history, all the while illustrating how profoundly these artists have visioned the struggles, the beauty, and the complex realities that shape our community,” Edwards said in an event advisory.
Where We Have Been will feature art created by a long list of locals, including Michael Abraham, Jim Adams, Sonny Assu, Sylvia Grace Borda, Karin Bubaš, Sarindar Dhaliwal, Lakshmi Gill, Ravi Gill, Jeremy Herndl, Doreen Jensen, Chris MacClure, Heidi McKenzie, Ulli Maibauer, Arnold Mikelson, Shani Mootoo, Ann Nelson, Fred Owen, Bill Rennie, Don Romanchuk, Adele Samphire, Nicolas Sassoon, Helma Sawatzky, Ranjan Sen, Jan Wade, Stella Weinert, Leslie Wells and Joanna S. Wilson.
Admission is free by online registration at surrey.ca/artgallery, or phone 604-501-5100. Pre-booked gallery visits will be available at select times on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5 to 9:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Three other exhibitions are also featured this fall, including Don Hutchinson and Ying-Yueh Chuang: Passages, which explores “the whimsical possibilities of ceramic with fantastical creatures and lifeforms from two Surrey-based artists.” In the video installation Proscenium, Carol Sawyer “uses the stage as means to play with the audience’s perception of images, illusions and performance,” and artists Dan Tell, James Lash and Sheri Lynn Seitz from the Colour Collective “celebrate the city through vibrant landscape painting and photographs” in Searching for Surrey.
In Whalley, the Surrey UrbanScreen venue will showcase Varvara & Mar: We Are the Clouds during the evening hours, “to transform your movements into clouds, floating serenely across a brilliant blue sky projected in largescale on the west wall of Chuck Bailey Recreation Centre.”
Back at Surrey Arts Centre (13750 88th Ave.), onsite art courses are offered to children, youth and adults ranging from watercolour and clay sculpture to drawing and more, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings and Saturdays during the day, starting Sept. 28.
This fall Surrey Art Gallery will continue to present Art Together, a series of online programs which began in March. They explore art and artists in the community, “spark the imagination, and celebrate the ways that art can impact our lives.”
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