Appropriately for March break, Gibsons Public Art Gallery (GPAG) is staging Shout Out!, the Young People’s Art Show for the next few weeks, exhibiting creative works produced by children and youth from around the Sunshine Coast.
Gallery manager Michael Aze admitted at the show’s Saturday, March 16 opening reception that “for many of us, this is our favourite exhibition of the year.” Aze’s fondness for the event – now in its ninth year – is understandable.
Entering the gallery, we are greeted on the west wall to the left by the bright enthusiasm of the youngest contributors, in everything from finger paints to intensely busy creations like Plants vs. Zombies at Night, by five-year old Orca Salmonberry Coates Franklin.
The exhibit is laid out according to grade level and naturally grows more sophisticated as the artists’ ages increase. The most senior works from local high school students are all inspired and it’s impossible to pick favourites from the dozens of memorable creations. All are well worth a look. But to note just a few: there’s the arresting female abstract figure by Mallory Haslett; the Magritte-like absurdity by Jade Pratt; Jessica Cyr’s beautifully rendered grey horse; and Celia Brand’s gorgeous clouded clipper-sails and wooden boat.
The curator is SD46 art teacher Kevin McEvoy, who not only encouraged students to submit but suggested they offer them for sale as well, which many kids have done this year.
“I told them, ‘Here’s an opportunity to show your work and also you can put a price tag on it if you’d like to try to sell it,’” McEvoy told Coast Reporter. “That way, they’re having an experience of participating in an adult art setting.”
Shout Out! runs through Sunday, April 7.
