 (Public Art Conservator Andrea Bowes, artist Sandra Bromley, and installer Jim Lucas confer as Gun Blue is lowered into place. photo R. Harpin)
Edmonton Arts Council :: Fresh Art in Borden Park
It took two days of cranes, straps, power tools, ingenuity, hard hats, and several buckets of sunscreen to install the 11 new sculptures now residing in Borden Park. Artists Sandra Bromley, Kasie Campbell, Agnieszka Koziarz, and Susan Owen Kagan oversaw the installation of their artworks on the concrete pads dotted throughout the historic park. The EAC Public Art and Conservation teams, with invaluable assistance from Encore Trucking, (and some good old Alberta sunshine) moved and installed everything in record time.
The sculptures are the second iteration of the Borden Park Temporary Sculpture Loan Program, which was initiated in 2014. The program takes finished art out of the studio and places it in an accessible and highly visible setting. The diversity of works exhibited to date illustrates the depth of creativity within the city’s arts community as well as the ways in which generations of artists influence each other. The Borden Park Temporary Sculpture Loan Program was inspired by the extensive park refurbishment and rehabilitation that took place in 2014. The inclusion of public art highlights the park’s role as a community gathering place and destination attracting bicycle tours, dog walkers, families, and selfie aficionados
The new sculptures, on view until summer 2019, are by four women artists –– and represent more than 30 years of artmaking in Edmonton.
They offer different textures, shapes, movement, and scales to explore. Located throughout the park – five are adjacent to the formal fountains and gardens, with a further six works nestled in the trees along the park footpaths.
The Edmonton Arts Council is in the process of installing information plaques by each sculpture, so in the meantime, click below for a who’s who list of the artists, with links to the artworks on the City of Edmonton Public Art Collection Online Gallery, to guide you on your ambles of discovery.
We welcome social media posts! Please tag your Instagram and Twitter pics with #yegpublicart and #yegarts.
Click here for details about the art & artists on the YEGArts Blog
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SAVE THE DATE :: Public Art Picnic
Borden Park, August 24, 2017 ~ 5:30-8:00pm
Join the Edmonton Arts Council and the Borden Park Temporary Sculpture Loan Program featured artists for art al fresco, summer treats, and art-making. We'll be serving up gourmet dogs from Fat Franks, and facilitating some street-inspired panel painting.
Artists Sandra Bromley, Kasie Campbell, Agnieszka Koziarz, and Susan Owen Kagan will tour attendees around the art, telling stories of how the sculptures came to be created and the inspirations behind each.
This event is free to the public, and suitable for all ages, but registration is preferred through TIX on the Square - so we have enough food for everyone! We will send more information once details are confirmed.
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(Artist Maquettes; L. Turner & P. Bernhardt ~ Thing 1 [green] & Thing 2 [pink] )
New This Month in #yegpublicart
Thing 1 & Thing 2
Lisa Turner & Paul Bernhardt
West Edmonton Mall Transit Centre
Acrylic Resin on Aluminum
The low relief metal works Thing 1 and Thing 2 investigate the relationship between product design and gestalt theory. Multiple consumer products are combined to compose hybrid forms that appear familiar yet enigmatic. The pieces evoke the historic Rorschach inkblot test, while creating whimsical, animated, and anthropomorphic images. These works rely on memory, experience, and imagination to generate meaning, thus lending themselves to individual interpretation.
Is the work celebratory or critical of consumerism? The work encourages the viewer to question their relationship to the ‘products’ they are viewing, and subsequently question their own relationship to consumption.
The materials were chosen for their slick, synthetic, fabricated appearance (as that relates to consumerism), and their ability to contrast with the surrounding environment. Sanded metal finish shifts and changes depending on viewer location and lighting, however the texture is buried under smooth clearcoat.
Colours were selected again for the relationship to environment, and their "pop" synthetic qualities.
Lisa Turner holds an MFA specializing in Printmaking from the University of Alberta and a BFA from NSCAD University. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, receiving numerous awards and grants for her print-based works that explore ideas surrounding mass media, material culture, and consumption. She is especially interested in the strange objects that are available for purchase today and the buying behavior that results.
Paul Bernhardt holds an MFA (Painting) from Purchase College: State University of New York, and a BFA from NSCAD University. He has won a number of awards, most notably the Joseph Beuys Memorial Scholarship while at NSCAD, the Dean’s Scholar Award while attending Purchase College, and project grants from both the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Canada Council for The Arts. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally, and has work in numerous Public and Private collections.
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