With the recent opening of new exhibits in late April comes a slate of exhibit-related Art Talks.
This month at the Comox Valley Art Gallery (CVAG), you can experience a variety of presentations and workshops.
Every Wednesday in May, the Comox Valley Living City Challenge design team will present a lunch hour talk from noon to 1 p.m. Admission is by donation and you can bring your lunch.
The Comox Valley Living City Challenge is a project on display in the George Sawchuk Gallery until June 4 by a group from the local design, engineering and urban planning community who have successfully planned and designed a model of sustainable living for the Valley. They are Jay Dahlgren (landscape designer), Tom Dishlevoy (architect), Will Marsh (professor of landscape architecture), and Alison Mewett (landscape architect). Their design for the Valley comprises an entry to the international Living City Design Competition: Visualizing the Future of Civilization.
The project addresses the question: “What if every single act of design and construction made the world a better place?” While the human imagination knows no bounds, the Living City Design Competition required that the entrants model their futuristic cities on existing places — demonstrating how the selected city might be adapted to cultivate a rich community fabric that is rooted in its climate, culture and place. The Living City Competition asked design teams to visualize a truly sustainable city that could conceivably be created over the next 25 years.
The metaphor is of a flower. Like a flower, all elements of the built environment are rooted in place. Yet, a flower has placed-based solutions to meet all of its energy, water and resource needs to maintain balance with its surroundings. So, imagine a building, site or infrastructure project that is informed by its ecoregion’s characteristics, and that generates all of its own energy with renewable resources, captures and treats its water, and operates efficiently and for maximum beauty; and a neighbourhood that has scaled these solutions appropriate to its size and function.
On May 12, CVAG welcomes the graduating class of this year’s local Emily Carr University BFA program. Currently on exhibit in the Public Gallery, “dimension variable” is on until June 4. The evening presentation begins at 7 p.m. sharp and runs until 8:30.
Artists Maddy Elia, Catherine Lavelle, Anne Palmer, Sareh Puetz, Deborah Sears, Sarah Stein, and Leaitta Thompson will present on their artworks that range in variety of themes, subject matter and media. This presentation will include slideshows, discussions and an opportunity to examine the exhibited works in depth.
On Saturday, May 14, have afternoon tea with local artist Ramona Gregory. From 2 to 3 p.m., Gregory will be on hand to answer questions about her ceramics, functional ware, paintings and general art practice. Her show features ceramic forms, teapots, teacups and paintings based on shapes from nature’s flora, fauna and her ponderings of science and technology. The artist maintains a belief in things unknown and undiscovered — the strangeness and perfection of nature’s spectacles fuel her curiosity. Gregory has been working with ceramics since studying at Emily Carr Institute in 2001.
Admission to the gallery exhibits is free for members and by donation for the public. All events in May are by donation ($2 to $5 per person is suggested).
Comox Valley Art Gallery is located at 580 Duncan Ave. in downtown Courtenay. Visit www.comoxvalleyartgallery.com or call 250-338-6211 for complete details.
— Comox Valley Art Gallery