CALEB NICKERSON
PORTAGE DU FORT
Aug. 23, 2019
On Friday, the Stone School Gallery in Portage du Fort was teeming with people for the opening of . . .
two different exhibits.
Upstairs, a collective of printmakers made up of Sylvia Bretzloff, Valerie Bridgman, Murray Dineen, Rosemary Hynes Driscoll, Louise Guay, Jacques Hamel, Rob Hinchley, Dale Shutt and Anne Thériault had their exhibit, Terrain. Each had a collection of their work displayed around the perimeter of the gallery, ranging from fabric dyed with natural pigments to etchings on aluminum, with many forest and outdoor scenes.
“It came about from a group of printmakers, at the stone school , this group was all the intermediate class,” explained Hinchley, who was the group’s instructor. “We just decided last summer to put an exhibition together, an idea for the group show. Terrain became the idea.”
“We just thought we should show what’s inspired by what’s important to us,” Bridgeman explained. “Nature plays a really big part in a lot of people’s work. We live in the country you know.”
Hinchley said that printmaking is a different experience than other mediums, because it often involves more collaboration than other types of art.
“A lot of times, people doing printmaking share ideas too, because there’s the one press and you work in a group studio, so it’s very collaborative in that way,” he said. “It’s a little different than someone who is doing drawing, they might be by themselves for hours and hours.”
Downstairs was Glen Hartle’s mixed media exhibit, The Fulcrum of Affirmation. The room was dim and the walls glowed with photographs of animals and nature, printed on acrylic and backlit with LEDs. Below each photograph, was a word of affirmation as well as a poem.
At the end of the hall, there was a final photo behind a locked door and a red velvet rope, dubbed the ‘ultimate affirmation.’ Only a person willing to purchase the work, sight unseen, would be able to unlock the door and behold it’s splendour.
Both exhibits will be on display until Sept. 15.
