The Art Gallery of Alberta respectfully acknowledges that we are located in Treaty 6 Territory and Region 4 of the Métis Nation of Alberta. We respect this as the traditional and contemporary land of diverse Indigenous Peoples including the Plains Cree, Woodland Cree, Beaver Cree, Nitsitapi/Blackfoot, Métis, Nakota Sioux, Anishinaabe/Saulteaux/Ojibwe and Dene Peoples. We also acknowledge the many Indigenous, Inuit and Métis people who make Alberta their home today.
Being a Sri Lankan by origin, I endeavor to express the social and political power, which
brings forth the ugly realities of the never ceasing ‘violence’ of the tormented society I live
in. Inscribing personal and societal memories, my works look at how the Sri Lankan society
is manipulated by corrupted power relations.
Tom Gale is a western Canadian artist residing and working from Edmonton. His work can be found in numerous local, national and international private and public collections. Some public collections are: The Alberta Art Foundation, Canadian Utilities Ltd., Chase Communications, Place Crete Inc., Royal Alex Hospital and many others.
Nicole Galellis studied painting at the University of Alberta and then transferred to the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design where she received her BFA in 2002. Since graduating, she has participated in artist residencies in Banff, Grande Prairie and Taipei, Taiwan. Nicole has taught at the Art Gallery of Alberta, Harcourt House Gallery and the Nina Haggerty Centre for the Arts. In 2012 she completed her degree in Education and is currently teaching art and English at Braemar High School. In July 2014 Nicole completed her largest work yet, a 60’ long mural for the Borden Park Pavilion, commissioned by the City of Edmonton.
Helen Gerritzen lives and works in Edmonton. She received her MFA from the University of Alberta, where she taught drawing and printmaking and coordinated the drawing program for the Department of Art and Design. She moved to Houston, Texas in 2010 where she has taught printmaking at the Glassell School of Art and was the Chair of Print Houston Next, a US-wide biennial of contemporary print. In early 2013, she moved to England for a time and lived in a rural community in North Lincolnshire. Gerritzen’s work has been exhibited internationally in numerous solo, juried, and invited exhibitions and is currently represented by Nicole Longnecker Gallery in Houston.
Lonigan Gilbert boldly tackles difficult subjects, often accompanied by a wry and slightly macabre sense of humour. A member of the Fisher River Cree Nation in Treaty 5 territory, this emerging multidisciplinary artist has been living and working in amiskwaciywaskahikan, Treaty 6 territory, since 2016.
Gilbert’s cacophonous works are densely packed. Riots of colour and text fill the canvas, leading us through the scenes at a dizzying pace. An impressive range of art media are used to a spellbinding effect. Highly symbolic, the artworks feature icons from literature, music and films sitting side by side with references to historic people and places.
We are led through a gripping visual journal that reveals the artist’s observations of our chaotic contemporary world. Raw and powerful, Gilbert’s work takes aim at our inattentive society. He is piercingly critical of the prolific culture of division, which enshrine pontification over dialogue and a perpetual cycle of ‘othering.’
When the facades are dropped and distractions put aside, we are left with a call to honestly see one another. Within the mess and complexity, Gilbert encourages us to recognize all people as people first.
Shane Golby has been a practicing artist for over thirty years. For the first twenty years of his artistic career he focused on still-life and landscape subjects. The works produced during these years were drawn from his travels in Africa, northern Alberta, and the Canadian Arctic. While focusing on the natural world, these earlier works, produced in a variety of drawing and painting media with an emphasis on chalk pastels, also examined a variety of personal concerns such as isolation and loss.
Although Matt Gould was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, he has lived Toronto, Vancouver, and the south of France as well as a seven-year stint sailing the seven seas aboard a variety of cruise ships. He has been living in Red Deer, Alberta since the early 2000's, enjoying and taking advantage of the wonderfully complex trails and pathways that criss-cross the city.
Gould has spent most of his life in the arts and has expressing himself through painting, drawing, fibre, book illustration, singing, acting, script writing and theatre direction. He has taught Contemporary Art in Process at Red Deer College and acted as Artistic Director/Playwright in Residence for the award-winning Tree House Youth Theatre. He has been an active member of the Alberta Craft Council, CARFAC, the Red Deer Arts Council, and Theatre Alberta. Matt continues to push boundaries in his studio practice hoping, one day, "to get it right"!
Toby Graser is one of New Brunswick’s most prolific artists. Her paintings have been in 15 group exhibitions.
Asked about her work, Graser recalls “When I first started painting, it was a hobby; something I did because I was bored. Before long I realized I didn’t control the painting, the painting controlled me. The images were there and I had to get them down before I lost them. I would get up at night and paint to make sure I didn’t lose them. It has been an obsession.”
Frank Grisdale was born in Edmonton in 1954, his pursuit of the ‘perfect landscape’ began in 1976 when he volunteered as a photographer in Lesotho, which is a desolate island nation completely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. While traveling alone for four months through the isolated mountain villages, Frank had the luxury of time to shoot hundreds of rolls of film for both the people of Lesotho and for his own personal work.
Glenn Guillet was raised in Edmonton’s vibrant Garneau neighbourhood. Art was an important part of his life right from his early years, as evidenced from his first art award in grade six. A few years after finishing his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Alberta in 1971, Guillet opened a studio practice that has lasted 42 years and counting.
