by openings tonight
I’m getting ready to go to a couple of art openings this evening:
1. RETURN, prints by Hannamari Jalovaara and Taiga Chiba at Malaspina Printmakers Gallery, opening 7 – 9 pm.
2. IN CONTRAST – ceramic sculpture by Mary Kim and paintings by Yang Hong at Capilano College Art Gallery in North Vancouver, opening 6 -8 pm. I only learned about this one yesterday – it’s on March 20 – 31st. I knew Yang as a young man in the same high school my daughters attended but haven’t seen him since he graduated from Emily Carr Institute, Vancouver’s art school. He’s done very well – check his website! I look forward to seeing him again.
I will report back on these later!
LATER:
RETURN is an excellent print show, and its amazing how well the two artists works showed well together thematically. I had fun chatting in Finnish with Hannamari, whom I’ve met a couple of times before several years ago. Her work includes some text in English, Finnish and Latin. I had a chuckle with her that we are the only ones in the room who could read Finnish! Sorry I forgot to take photos in the rush but do visit the links in my earlier announcement of RETURN.
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IN CONTRAST features Yang Hong’s very large predominantly black paintings, the Rivet Series, and 24 very small panels called Absence (photo above with Yang) in predominately white, all done in polyurethane and oil. (I was in error thinking the small paintings were Mary Kim’s when I saw the show yesterday – so corrected the earlier statement above.)
Mary’s works are the installation of ceramic rats “Plead” (photo below). Both Mary and Yang are recent MFA grads of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was wonderful to see Yang again and to meet Mary and congratulate both on their achievements and their thoughtful and well done art work.
March 23, 2006 in Art Exhibitions, Other artists by Marja-Leena
Thank you for the introduction to Yang Hong’s work. It is intriguing, and I shall spend more time wandering through his website.
Thanks for your interest, Omega. I should have mentioned that Yang’s work in this show is very recent and not on his website yet. His colourful bubbles or circles are something I remember from his early work. The new black pieces were very difficult to photograph well, to show that those “bubbles” were still there, but almost black and set in with a fine grid pattern, against a subtle surface of matte and shiny paint areas, with some drips. Hard to describe and hard to show here. I wonder about this switch from bright colours to black, then white.