Julie Oakes
Special to The Morning Star
The expression “running with the ball” has the intonation of a previous activity that has been passed on so that in the ongoing holding of the ball, a new height has been achieved. Headbones Gallery presents an exhibition of works by artists who have in the series which they are showing here, arrived at new plateaus.
The beginning impetus is a challenge, a ball passed which must be caught. For Jane Everett, Destanne Norris and Amber Powell this was the challenge of showing in a public gallery and the opportunity that exhibition affords the artist to gathering together a body of work. Reg Kienast challenged himself — tossed, caught and ran.
Everett had been working using animal and natural imagery. Dividing her life between Kelowna and a cottage on Shushwap Lake, her subject came from the wilds.
She is accomplished, productive and practiced in her medium with a rich dark palette. Her studio dictated the size of her works so although she has made large paintings, size limitation was her challenge. When the Kelowna Art Gallery invited her into the exhibition Drawing from Life and she understood the size of the space that she could occupy, Everett caught the ball and ran with it.
Using a rolled format during the making much like the unfurling of a scroll, she completed a drawing on drafting film, The Hunt, that is 22 x 264 inches. In this drawing coyotes run the length of wall with an energy that charges the air and shifts preconceptions of covering space into a new dimension.
Norris has a visceral connection between the physicality of existence and spirituality that is brilliantly composed in her Stellar series, which showed at the Vernon Art Gallery in 2017. These large scale and adept translations of the cosmos bring the phenomena of stellar space into a human perspective.
In Portal to Imagination (Rosette Nebula) she places the mysterious influences — and beauty — of scientific realizations into reach while still maintaining the grandeur and sublime notions of outer space. By focusing on the unique forms of constellation so far and vast that they assume near incomprehensible dimensions, Norris grants an experience similar to that of catching a falling star.
Powell’s exhibition Third Drawer Down that showed at the Vernon Art Gallery in 2017 is an artistic culmination of more intimate prospects. The title suggests a commonality to the flotsam and jetsam of personal things and alludes to the inner realm of memory as well as to an outer physicality where the exercise of stuff management must be brought into play.
These works gelled so and as the series solidified Powell’s practice the flow began. Working from a studio space within a home with full domestic distraction, she has made works that with a quiet insistence match the comedic with the poignant. Having created new works for Headbones Gallery’s Running with the Ball, the ruminations of her well grounded intellect are anticipated in much the same way as finally reading the newly released novel of a favorite author.
Kienast with his inclusion in Running with the Ball will have shown in all three of Headbones’ Vernon locations. This new body of work marks a step outwards and up into different materials with expanded techniques that necessitated a delicate balance between spontaneity and planning. Using glass as his palette and brush, his abstract compositions glow with informed decisions, the outcome of having travelled to more than 60 different countries with the purposeful agenda of being exposed to art and ethnicity. This new work was done in collaboration with Annamarie Fux (glass) and John Vivian (metal).
Reg says, “I like to be able to tinker with an idea, scratch it out on paper, then try to take the design to the materials. Sculpture is both a meditative process and a crap-load of heavy lifting, cuts, bruises and burns. I mostly love the whole process.”
When the ball is in hand and the artist is running, the outcomes of the process can be powerful. The show opens at Headbones Gallery March 11 from 2-5 p.m. with a royal high tea. Everett, Kienast, Norris and Powell will be in attendance.
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