eVent Magazine - Stories Page -

Home is where the heart is
By Portia Priegert
Monday, January 25, 2010

Email this article
Send a Letter to the Editor
Printer friendly page

Mary Bull, Felix, 2003, acrylicc on canvas, collection of Carol Taylor.

Organizing Kelowna Collects, an exhibition of art from private collections, was almost like a second Christmas for Liz Wylie, curator of the Kelowna Art Gallery.
She spent months visiting homes and choosing artworks, which were then packed and moved to the gallery‘s storage space.
“I had fun making a show out of this,” says Wylie. “Before we started this week, it was all wrapped up and stuffed into the holding room. There was no way it would be practical to unwrap it ahead of time.”
She had selected some 90 works from about 25 local collectors and had a tight three-day timeline for hanging it.
“I didn‘t use any formula. I didn‘t take walls and sizes. I just winged it.”
Don‘t bother asking Wylie which works are her favourites – she likes everything because she picked them based on “gut instinct” and years of looking at art.
“To me, they‘re all highlights because when I went to people‘s houses, I only picked a few things, sometimes one thing, from everything they had,” she says. “Partly, you don‘t want to strip their whole house and leave them with
nothing, because a lot of it, we picked up before Christmas.
“I picked the things that I thought were the strongest, that I thought would work, that I thought would be really interesting to have in the show.”
Her vision unfolds best if you turn left as you enter the main gallery and proceed clockwise.
At the start are historic Canadian landscapes by the Group of Seven. Then come more contemporary landscapes and a long wall of portraits from different eras. They are followed by an assortment of abstract paintings.
“Then we get my funky wall, which is all Pop and graphic and really colourful, to end with a big crashing crescendo,” says Wylie.
Smaller works are grouped together in
a second gallery.
Wylie, who is relatively new to Kelowna, had some surprises, including work by Matisse and Toulouse-Lautrec.
Still, she says the show represents only a fraction of the art in Kelowna homes.
“I don‘t think I‘ve exhausted everything,” says Wylie. “I think there are still a lot of people out there who either weren‘t comfortable lending, or it wasn‘t convenient or they just didn‘t hear about it.”
The show includes everything from Hopi dolls to Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Emily Carr. Local artists include Bryan Ryley, Jim Tanner, David Alexander, Jane Everett, Gary Pearson, John Hall, Ann Kipling, Percival Ritchie and Mary Bull.
“It is something of a wild romp through styles, periods, regions and art methods and media,” Wylie writes in an accompanying essay.
“Overall, a clear sense of enthusiasm and appetite would perhaps emerge; this is a place where people like art, and all different kinds of art.”
She didn‘t find as much work by local artists as she expected and there was little video, installation or edgy contemporary work.
“I think that for most collectors, the taste tends to be a little bit conservative and traditional in that it has to go into your house.”
She notes that the region‘s aging
population means collectors are not as active as in larger cities.
“I think that art collecting is more a thing for younger people because by the time you get old you already have so much that it really slows down.”
The monetary value of work in the show ranges widely, but there were enough valuable pieces that the gallery boosted its insurance coverage. Most lenders are not identified, in part to discourage potential thefts once the work returns home.
It‘s only the second time the gallery has had such a show. The first was in 1996.
Wylie says she decided to do it again so anyone visiting the Valley as part of a trip to the Olympics could see some of the region‘s art.
“I thought, well, if I went somewhere in Germany or Japan and I‘m in a gallery, what would I be interested in seeing? Something about that place – something that tells me more about art in that place – like a window to the place through the art.”
Kelowna Collects continues until
March 7.

What: Kelowna Collects, selected works of art from private collections
Where: Kelowna Art Gallery,
1315 Water St.
When: To March 7
Admission: $5, free on Thursdays from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Info: 250-762-2226

Top of Page

	About Us
	Add an eVent
	Contact Us
	eVent Night Out

	Personal growth needs to be nurtured
	Jazz and blues fest offers great lineup
	Why Christian tend to like Judas