David Garneau: Road Kill - January 1 to February 23

Featuring the work of Saskatchewan Metis artist David Garneau, Road Kill is an exhibition of acrylic and oil paintings and drawings of birds and deer killed on prairie highways by automobiles along the old Carlton Trail. These are not gory pictures meant to disgust; nor are they images of cute dead animals designed to elicit only pathos. They are realistic representations of fauna composed to create a tension between beauty and the grotesque, pleasure and pain, resemblance and abstraction. They are attractive images that discover beauty in an unconventional source. They have us wonder about the ethics of our pleasure and progress and encourage us to contemplate our short time in the world.
Our current standard of living relies on the proliferation of highways. Unfortunately, this artificial network has been laid over a pre-existing, natural network of migratory and other animal routes. When the two systems collide, animals are usually the greater victims of our advancement. Road kills are the inevitable result of modern travel. Considering the fate of these birds and deer reminds us that we have made an implicit ethical calculation that the loss of these lives is an acceptable consequence of our lifestyle.
These paintings encourage the viewer to reflect on mortality, including their own. They are in the memento mori (remembrance of death) still life art tradition, often symbols for the fragility of life. Road Kill plays with and goes against this tradition – these paintings are both stilled lives and landscape. These animals were once wild and beautiful, and then they were destroyed and abject. Now, as art, they are revived as something new, an aesthetic experience that encourages us to contemplate the effect of our colonization of nature.

Carri J. McKinnon: Illuminated Spaces - January 1 to February 23

Carri McKinnon is inspired by the emotional pull and visual poetry of forgotten places. High contrast imagery and the patterns created by prairie sunlight and shadows create stark spaces which draw her in. McKinnon says, “When bright sunlight steals into an abandoned structure, that ‘dark corner’ is illuminated; the transformation fascinates me. The sunlight, impartial to the ‘quality’ of what is in its path, bathes the space, causing it to become something new. My work is meant to invite the viewer in. Silvery light draws the viewer in to the spaces I have discovered/ created.”
When the inhabitants of a home move on, the structure stays behind. The house itself seems to have absorbed the personalities of those who have lived there. It becomes a connection – from the earth to the people. As the home continues its “life cycle” into deterioration, it seems to be a living, breathing entity… curtains blowing, an old chair rocking, blinds flapping, roof sagging, gusts soughing from the rafters and dust motes floating in shafts of brilliant sunlight. The light in these forgotten spaces enchants Carri McKinnon and encourages her to investigate further. The light and deep shadows inspire her to create works that will capture the quality of a moment in the space and suspend it. Both of these exhibitions are sponsored by the Battlefords Allied Arts Council and touring through the Organization of Allied Arts Councils.

Abstractionism- February 3rd - 28th

North Battleford Photography Club