The Sunshine Coast Arts Council presents two local award-winning artists at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre gallery. Halfmoon Bay resident Katherine Johnston's body of work is entitled Piecing it Together, while Eric Allen Montgomery of Roberts Creek, presents Souvenirs, Relics and Detritus. These are the last Arts Centre exhibitions in 2005. They run from Nov. 23 to Dec. 18.
Johnston focuses Piecing it Together on reinventing, in collage, the historic, visual genres and conventional subject matter found throughout art history. The challenge is to translate torn bits of colours into the elements of art. She uses cut or torn magazine pages to combine colours, values and textures to re-construct predictable imagery in visually appealing and sometimes startling ways.
"Collage has brought a light hearted element and a fresh slant to the approach I use in creating art," she said.
She has exhibited on the Sunshine Coast and the Lower Mainland and is an active participant in the Federation of Canadian Artists who recognized her in 2003 with an Award of Excellence and in 2004 with the Alessandra Bitelli Award.
Montgomery exhibits mixed media assemblages in Souvenirs, Relics and Detritus. He combines found and fabricated materials into multi-dimensional stories of form, colour and texture. The resulting shrines, altars and reliquaries take a light-hearted look at his life - what he calls the highways, back alleys and goat paths to enlightenment.
He is a mixed media sculptor and a glass artist. He has received awards for his "memory boxes" as well as for his glass works. Montgomery was a founding member of the Glass Onion studio and gallery and co-ordinator of the ACE (Art Craft Excellence) exhibition and sales in Vancouver and at the Seaside Centre last summer. Throughout his artistic career, Montgomery has been involved in organizing and promoting a variety of art events and exhibitions.
All are welcome to the Arts Centre for the artists' reception on Nov. 23 from 7 to 9 p.m.
