Kitchener City Hall Art Galleries

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The artist's reception is tomorrow evening. Were you photographed?

Artist-in-residence wraps up year’s work
Link | Doc

Kitchener’s artist-in-residence for 2011, Sean M Puckett, wraps up his year’s work entitled Portrait of Kitchener with a month-long exhibit at the Rotunda Gallery in December, and a free informal talk on Sunday, Dec. 11 from 1:30-3:30 p.m. in the council chambers at city hall. The Dec. 11 event will include a final portrait-taking session, so anyone who missed their chance earlier in the year should not miss this opportunity to be part of the project. "One of the things that struck me was how willing people are to be photographed, once they understand the project. I guess at least 50 per cent of the people we talked to ended up in front of the camera," said Puckett. Entitled A Portrait of Kitchener, the collection of 1,000 photographs was taken during events such as the blues festival and the multicultural festival, and at locations such as the Kitchener Market. Puckett photographed willing passers-by, using a standardized lighting and background set-up to provide a common visual feel, thus allowing each person’s individuality and unique appearance to be celebrated. “I never told anyone to smile. I asked them to be themselves. Maybe that meant smiling, and maybe not. Most people smiled, though: big, friendly, genuine smiles!” he said. "It was very important to have a consistent look to the portraits so it wouldn't be possible to know when, or where, the portraits were done. Some were done mid-day in the heat of summer at Victoria Park, some at midnight in the back room of a dance party, some in a soup kitchen. We eliminated all that from the photos. Without the distractions of the environment the portraits were taken in, it's possible to see only the individuality of the participants." Puckett said the experience gave him a greater sense of community. "It's not just the residents that make a community. I met people from Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph, London, Toronto, New York, even one couple from the UK,” he said, adding, ”but right when I photographed them, they were in Kitchener, joining with us to make our community more vibrant, more exciting and more diverse than ever." The Ontario Arts Council supports the artist’s Rotunda Gallery exhibit with a grant. As part of the artist-in-residence legacy, the artist will present the photography collection to the City next year in a form that can be enjoyed by the public. Where: City of Kitchener Rotunda Gallery, city hall Artist: Sean Puckett Name of exhibition: Portrait of Kitchener Artist’s reception: Thursday, Dec. 8, 5-7 p.m.

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Very excited to see the opening of a Sky Gallery.

City hall now has three art spaces
Link | Doc

Kitchener City Hall now has more ways to bring art to life, with its two indoor galleries and an outdoor one at the top of city hall’s Berlin Tower. Rotunda Gallery: Into Thin Air by Sandra Martin will be exhibited through the month of January. A former artist-in-residence for the City of Kitchener (2002), Martin’s exhibit uses clouds as a metaphor for the mind or the intellect, juxtaposing them with the concrete man-made structures of bridges. “I tried to capture the essence of the subject revealing just enough detail to cause the form to appear on the canvas as if out of a fog or mist. Their lack of foundation and the misty, transparent way in which they are painted is meant to instill a sense of transience,” said the artist. Her work has the added dimension of collage. Japanese decorative paper provides a decorative and craft-like element to the work. A sense of depth is created in her work through this use of multiple layers. “The transparent way in which the work is created allows the paper to show through and symbolizes the fact that rusting, decaying bridges often have a limited mortality and an imperfect reliability,” she says. Born in Toronto, Martin has participated in several solo and group exhibitions in Canada and the United States, winning several awards. She paints full time from her home in Guelph. Berlin Tower ARTSPACE: Works showcasing the beauty of traditional Chinese art, such as paper-cutting, calligraphy and paintings, will be exhibited during the month of January, in celebration of the Chinese New Year on Jan. 21. Co-ordinated by Yin He, founder of The Gallery of Time, the 2012 KW Chinese New Year Art Show brings together a number of Chinese immigrants who have artistic training. He acknowledges a lack of connection between local Chinese artists and the larger art community. There will be a reception for the Gallery of Time’s exhibit of Chinese art in the Berlin Tower ARTSPACE on Friday, Jan. 20 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Our Sky Gallery: A rotation of art on the city’s most unusual gallery, high above street level. This month includes: Tell Me a Secret by Dave McLeod: This video tells the story of a man being pursued by an unknown being. He thinks he's being chased for something he has, but things aren’t that simple. Jeffrey Steele: As a landscape painter, Steele's ongoing focus is on colourful landscapes painted from life and photographs. Impressionistic in style, his painting expresses his experience, feelings, and memories of many places. Town Square by Gary Young: The medium is the message. In Young's exhibit, 10 altered quick response (QR) code images appear on a variety of coloured backgrounds. The text tag embedded in each code image is a website address from selected city hall departments and small business locations downtown.

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City hall features pastoral and Arctic exhibits for February
January 24, 2012 | City of Kitchener | Link

Kitchener City Hall now has more ways to bring art to life, with its two indoor galleries and an outdoor one at the top of city hall’s Berlin Tower.

Rotunda Gallery: Bodacious Bucolic Extracts by Amy Ferrari celebrates the powerfully serene beauty found in landscapes and regional farm-scapes. Contemporary life can seem so hectic that the energizing calm of the open countryside often goes under-appreciated or forgotten, says Ferrari.

“I am always bombarded by tons of visual interest. It's just that what I see as fascinating doesn't even register with most people,” she says. “I would like my work to encourage everyone to slow down and take another look, to see through a lens of imagination, fun and mystery, and to revel in all the wonderful details.”

Ferrari uses colour to magnify life on canvas. Colors across the spectrum, from limitless reflections of winter whites to lush summer greens, combine with expressive shapes, resulting in bold, harmonious and innovative works.

“My vision is that vibrant, joyous potential thrives in everybody, everything, and every situation,” she says.

An artist reception will be held on Thursday, Feb. 9 from 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Berlin Tower ARTSPACE: When Ben Eby, a dedicated outdoor photographer, was invited in 2010 to attend a High Arctic photographic symposium aboard the MV clipper, Adventurer, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Some of the photos he took on that expedition form the basis of his exhibit, Arctic Grain, in the Berlin Tower ARTSPACE for the month of February.

The seemingly unlimited creative potential of this landscape and daily unplanned and intimate wildlife encounters inspired his artistic energy. Eby’s exhibition is a selection of 12 images focusing on Arctic textures or “grain”; embedded throughout the landscape.

“All the images convey an evocative sense of texture, whether on a large scale or on a fine intimate level,” says Eby. “These images also respect key elements of design and composition, and in many cases expose details that would otherwise perhaps be overlooked.”

The collection showcases Arctic landscape and wildlife, including crumbling craggy precipices; cotton-like atmosphere burned away in perpetual daylight; the tangled wooly guard coat of stampeding muskoxen; coarse mountainside patterns, gracefully sweeping back to the Arctic ocean and piercing glacial waterfalls.

Our Sky Gallery: Watch for future programming.

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Commission for 2011 artist-in-residence endorsed
2012 residency underway with local artist, Jefferson Campbell-Cooper
January 30, 2012 | City of Kitchener | Link

Today, the community and infrastructure services committee recommended the commissioning and installation of artwork by Sean Puckett, the City of Kitchener’s artist-in-residence for 2011, whose Portrait of Kitchener featured 1,000 portrait photographs taken at numerous locations and events last year. Puckett also conducted a series of workshops and free public lectures throughout the year.

The installation will take the form of a large album with metal-framed pages mounted on a wooden book podium with lighting. The proposal is supported by the city’s public art working group.

The photos can be viewed at http://portraitofkitchener.tumblr.com/

2012 artist-in-residence

The residency of the 2012 artist-in-residence, Jefferson Campbell-Cooper, is now underway. Campbell-Cooper’s project, The People's Museum of Kitchener, will take the form of a large and detailed map of the Kitchener area. The map will become the floor surface of the Berlin Tower ARTSPACE on the ground floor at city hall. Locations of interest will accumulate over the month of March and fill up the walls, with help from the community.

The second component of Campbell-Cooper’s residency includes highlighting three different time periods of Kitchener's railway history. Tomorrow's Transportation Yesterday will feature highly detailed models, highlighting significant technological advances over the last century and speculating on the future of our community's rail infrastructure. These will be exhibited in display cases outside of the Conestoga Room on the ground floor of city hall.

The artist re-interprets history and cartography, bringing them into focus with a deeper connection with the matter and make-up of our surroundings, and to the impact with which they shape our lives.

“An investigation into the natural world, our perception and documentation of it, and our impact on it, ultimately exposes the legend of ourselves: a re-examination of the natural human, in the context of the current social-political atmosphere and post-industrialism,” says Campbell-Cooper, who explores and documents the relationship of humans with nature, through drawing, sculpture, and performance.

Exhibiting in Canada and the US, including events such as Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, Toronto, his national park projects include locations in Texas, New Mexico, the Yukon and Newfoundland.

Visit www.jeffersonsculpture.com for more information.

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Previous gallery exhibit inspires current one
February 24, 2012 | City of Kitchener | Link



Wide skies and maps are featured in the exhibits at the Rotunda Gallery and Berlin Tower ARTSPACE at Kitchener City Hall in March.

Rotunda Gallery: The Rotunda Gallery was the initial home for Boundless: The View From Here, the first phase of artist Marian Wihak’s ongoing body of work, Boundless. In 2007, an installation of five canvases constituted a single panorama spanning 42 feet, conceived specifically for the exhibition and designed to capitalize on the long gentle curve of the gallery wall.

The work was inspired by the movement of cloud masses and weather systems stretching across the limitless horizon of southern Saskatchewan, where Wihak was born and raised.

The current exhibit of five paintings, entitled Boundless: Sublime Maelstrom, represents core work from phase II of Boundless, which she started during a residency at the Banff Centre following a summer spent taking photographs from her car as she traveled across the southern parts of Saskatchewan and Alberta.

“It was a season marked by awe-inspiring storms and dramatic meteorological activity and gave birth to Boundless: Sublime Maelstrom, in which I embrace more affirmative definitions of both maelstrom and chaos as states of being that are rife with change, upset and also, potential,” says Wihak. “Creating this large-scale work for the Rotunda ignited my continuing engagement with the theme of boundlessness and has inspired me to more fully integrate my visual art practice with my experience designing large three-dimensional spaces for theatre and film.”

Berlin Tower ARTSPACE: The 2012 artist-in-residence for the City of Kitchener, Jefferson Campbell-Cooper, brings the People’s Museum of Kitchener to city hall in March with a room-size map. It’s an opportunity to:

• Share stories
• Map memories
• Contribute drawings
• Make a mark.

On the walls in the ARTSPACE, there are images and text to inspire you to share your stories about special Kitchener sites and locations. Jefferson will use your stories and drawings to create a unique map. There is no cost; it’s open to all.

The opportunity to interact with the map happens every Friday in March, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. For group visits and special-needs access, please contact the arts and culture unit, city hall, ahead of time, at 519-741-2912.

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KPL winners and science illustrators featured at city hall
March 26, 2012 | City of Kitchener | Link



Multiple artists are featured in the exhibits at the Rotunda Gallery and Berlin Tower ARTSPACE at Kitchener City Hall in April.

Rotunda Gallery: Work by the Southern Ontario Nature and Science Illustrators (SONSI) will be featured in the Rotunda Gallery.

SONSI is a community of about 30 illustrators whose work focuses on science and nature subjects. The artists in SONSI hope to raise the profile of this specialized subset of the illustration, art and design profession, to share their dedication to visualizing aspects of the natural world, and to help educate the public about issues in science and nature.

Science illustrators work with publishers, designers, art directors, scientists, advertisers and educators in developing visuals that communicate vital information as they illuminate the beauties of nature and the wonders of science. Subject matter ranges from nature and biology to astronomy and the latest conceptual thinking.

“What all science illustrations have in common is an exacting level of accuracy and faithfulness to the subject or concept, combined with a high degree of artistic skill and judgment in bringing the subject to life in a striking manner,” said Patricia Murphy, artist and SONSI member.

For more information about SONSI or to leave a comment about this exhibit, please visit www.sonsi.ca or e-mail sonsigroup@gmail.com.

Berlin Tower ARTSPACE: The winning photographs from the sixth annual amateur photography contest, presented by Kitchener Public Library, Waterloo Region Record and the City of Kitchener, will be on display in city hall’s Berlin Tower ARTSPACE throughout the month of April.

Photographs were submitted under four categories: people, architecture, animals and landscape.

Selected from nearly 1,200 entries by the Waterloo Region Record’s photo/graphics department, this year’s grand prize winner, and recipient of a $200 gift certificate, is Paul Saunders, who took first place in the people category.

The winners of the other three categories are Joseph Paredes (architecture), Henrique Kroeker (animals) and Caitlin Gold (landscape).

All winning photographers will be honoured at a special awards ceremony at Kitchener City Hall on Wednesday, April 4 at 6:30 p.m. The general public is welcome to attend the awards ceremony.

A selection of the winning photographs will also appear in an upcoming edition of the Waterloo Region Record and a slide show of all winning photos will be available on the Kitchener Public Library and Waterloo Region Record’s websites.

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City hall art exhibits honour past and future
April 27, 2012 | City of Kitchener | Link

The galleries in Kitchener City Hall are celebrating the past and imagining the future to observe Kitchener’s 100th anniversary of cityhood.

Rotunda Gallery: In May, students from Eastwood Collegiate Institute explore the theme, “Your place in the world,” an exhibit to commemorate Kitchener’s centennial celebrations. The show is juried by Ann Marie Hadcock of Homer Watson House and Gallery.

An opening reception will be held on Thursday, May 10, from 5-7 p.m.

Celebrate the Past, Imagine the Future explores the process in which students mediate ideas into visual language.

“I am excited to have an opportunity to curate an exhibition of youth art from Eastwood Collegiate, a school known for its innovative and creative programming,” said Hadcock. “The work in this exhibition is as diverse as the burgeoning minds of the next generation, influenced by a multitude of sources, including historical, futuristic and poetic subject matter.”

Berlin Tower ARTSPACE: To celebrate Kitchener’s cityhood centennial, the gallery features a special Homer Watson exhibit for the months of May and June, with paintings and artifacts from the Homer Watson House and Gallery collection.

An opening reception coincides with the centennial launch on June 10; the reception runs from 2-4 p.m.

This show will give the public a preview of the rich experiences waiting at Homer Watson gallery itself, where the exhibit, Bringing Heritage Home, is open from May 5 to Sept. 30. Bringing Heritage Home showcases Watson artworks from the Royal Collection in England, the National Gallery of Canada, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, Castle Kilbride in Baden and many private collections. The Pioneer Mill and The Last Day of the Drought are on loan from the Royal Collection.

Born at Doon Village, Homer Ransford Watson (1855-1936) decided at an early age to become a painter. He became Canada's premier landscape painter. He was a member, vice-president and president (1918-1922) of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, co-founder and first president (1907-1911) of the Canadian Art Club, and recipient of a posthumous Doctor of Laws Degree from the University of Western Ontario (1936).

Many fine examples of his landscape paintings still hang on the walls of his house, now called Homer Watson House and Gallery at 1754 Old Mill Rd. The Gothic Scottish-style house, built by industrialist Adam Ferrie in 1834-35, was the Watson residence from 1881 to 1936. He drew constant inspiration from the Grand River and the lands surrounding Doon. Watson believed that "art is for the people and not the few."

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City hall art exhibits honour past and future
City of Kitchener | Link



The galleries in Kitchener City Hall feature art that reflects on history in their exhibits for the month of June.

Rotunda Gallery: Interrupted Patterns is an exhibit of etchings, lithographs, and monoprints hand-printed onto fine Japanese papers by artist Pamela Lobb. Subsequently moulded together with fabric, the end result is reminiscent of fine porcelain. The exhibit will be at the Rotunda Gallery for the month of June. An artist’s reception will be held on Thursday, June 7, from 5-7 p.m.

The base of each piece is a handmade doily collected from New Hamburg, Goderich, or Clinton, Ontario. The doily represents Lobb’s eagerness to engage with objects, stories, and people from the past. The printing in the foreground of each piece is inspired by imagery found on Victorian dinnerware. A tradition of passing dinnerware from generation to generation continues in these communities. Receiving dinnerware also is similar to receiving the stories of the past.

“Many aspects of these communities are transforming through environmental changes, a decreasing population, and rapid job loss,” says Lobb, adding each of her delicate creations is “a loving tribute to a region under stress, and a nostalgic yet hopeful view of its transformation.”

Berlin Tower ARTSPACE: To celebrate Kitchener’s cityhood centennial, the gallery continues to feature a special Homer Watson exhibit for the months of May and June, with paintings and artifacts from the Homer Watson House and Gallery collection.

An opening reception coincides with the centennial launch on June 10; the reception runs from 2-4 p.m.

This show gives the public a preview of the rich experiences waiting at Homer Watson gallery itself, where the exhibit, Bringing Heritage Home, is open from May 5 to Sept. 30.

Bringing Heritage Home showcases Watson artworks from the Royal Collection in England, the National Gallery of Canada, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, Castle Kilbride in Baden and many private collections. The Pioneer Mill and The Last Day of the Drought are on loan from the Royal Collection.

Born at Doon Village, Homer Ransford Watson (1855-1936) became Canada's premier landscape painter. He was a member, vice-president and president (1918-1922) of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, and co-founder and first president (1907-1911) of the Canadian Art Club.

Many fine examples of his landscape paintings still hang on the walls of his house, now called Homer Watson House and Gallery at 1754 Old Mill Rd. Watson drew constant inspiration from the Grand River and the lands surrounding Doon, and believed that "art is for the people and not the few."

[UrbanWaterloo]

City hall art exhibits make connections
City of Kitchener | Link

The art galleries in Kitchener City Hall attempt to make connections for viewers for the month of July. The Rotunda Gallery features a number of printmakers’ regional connections, while the Berlin Tower ARTSPACE connects the past and present through photography and interviews.

Rotunda Gallery

The Riverside Print Group’s show, Over, Under, Around and Through, uses a variety of printmaking techniques such as relief printing, etching, and collagraphy. The exhibit is inspired by subjects in Waterloo Region (Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo, and the townships).

The theme is broadly interpreted to find connections and subjects throughout the region. The works are literal, figurative, conceptual, or abstract and reflect the process of the individual artists in the group. The subjects are as simple as a bridge that crosses the Grand River or a path through the woods, as complex as an aerial view of the intricate network of roads that connect the tri-cities, a highly abstracted cityscape or intimate views of local realities on a very small scale.

The exhibit reception is on Thursday, July 5, from 6 to 8 p.m.

Berlin Tower ARTSPACE

Trade Secrets: “Century Work” in Kitchener, by Karl Kessler and Sunshine Chen, is mounted in celebration of Kitchener’s cityhood centennial.

Trade Secrets is a sampling from Hands On: Matters of Uncommon Knowledge, an ongoing photo essay about people in Waterloo Region who work at long-established but disappearing trades, professions and cultural traditions. The people profiled in Trade Secrets were photographed and interviewed in their Kitchener workplaces between 2008 and 2012. The exhibit sees Kitchener’s disappearing industrial heritage through today’s lens of progress.

Trade Secrets is dedicated to the late John Rumpel, third-generation felt manufacturer, and the late Louis Pfeifer, Duke Street shoemaker for almost 50 years.

Karl Kessler, who contributed text and photographs to the exhibit, began taking pictures in 1988, moved to Kitchener-Waterloo from New York City in 1996. His photo essay work was most recently exhibited at the Waterloo Region Museum.

Sunshine Chen, who contributed interviews and audio, trained in architecture at the University of Waterloo, but now runs Storybuilders Inc., a new-media communications company that has produced videos and digital media presentations for clients across Canada. He uses video, photography and audio recordings to tell the stories and experiences of people, places and organizations.

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Twins’ textile art featured in Rotunda Gallery
August 20, 2012 | City of Kitchener | Link



Art influenced by geography and location is featured in both city hall art galleries for the month of September.

Rotunda Gallery: Debbie Richards and Diane Stewart, twin sisters and artists who share a special bond and a sense of synchronicity, but have developed separate artistic techniques, are exhibiting their show, Double Vision, at the Rotunda Gallery for the month of September.

The reception will be held on Thursday, Sept. 6 from 5-7 p.m.

Richards is a quilt artist and Stewart is a textile painting artist. Double Vision represents their reunited shared bond, with a series of images illustrating the similarities and unique voice to their work, shaped by their connection to the very different landscapes of Northern Ontario and Saskatchewan.

The pieces are unique and memorable, and each is an exquisite characterization of the Canadian landscape. Viewed up close, each work shows the carefully crafted and nuances of the landscape, and from afar, the details blend together into stunning images resembling the depth and richness of an oil painting.

Both artists say creating the Double Vision series was a richly rewarding experience, in that they both learned a great deal through the challenges of the process — selecting and creating the pieces, and working in conjunction with another artist. While they are still geographically far apart, each piece brought them closer, each artist gaining a deeper, more insightful relationship with her twin.

Stewart is a Northern Ontario artist who is inspired by the land around her. She applies paint and fabric to a canvas backdrop, to evoke the delicate beauty of her surroundings.

Richards’s one-of-a-kind, abstract art quilts are based on Canadian landscapes. Debbie’s quilts include a wide array of techniques including appliqué, curved piecing, felting, and beading.

Berlin Tower ARTSPACE: The City of Kitchener’s artist in residence for 2012, Jefferson Campbell-Cooper, will bring his ongoing project, The People’s Museum of Kitchener, to Kitchener City Hall for two months (Sept. 3–Oct. 30). Meet the artist on Fridays in September and October from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The People’s Museum invites an open dialogue between artist and community by reflecting on our local landscape through mapping. Visit www.jeffersonsculpture.com for more information.

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Berlin Tower gallery features art by inmates
City of Kitchener | Link | Doc



Two very different exhibits grace Kitchener City Hall’s art spaces for the month of November. The Rotunda Gallery features the work of Nik Harron, whose exhibit, Interrupted Horizons, explores the sense of connection felt when contemplating a landscape. Artworks created through the Fresh Start Creations program at the Grand Valley Institute for Women are featured for the month in the Berlin Tower ARTSPACE. There will be a reception for both spaces on Thursday, Nov. 8, from 5-7 p.m.

ROTUNDA: For Belfast-born Harron, Interrupted Horizons speaks to the impact industrialization of the landscape has on our sense of connection to our surroundings.

“To contemplate a landscape is to feel a deeply spiritual sense of connection to one’s surroundings,” says the artist. Harron adds that when the natural landscape is altered, “We create self-reinforcing disconnects within the historical record that lead to inter-generational blindness of what has been altered.”

Spanning several disciplines, Harron’s recent work has focused on the Canadian landscape. His heavily textural approach to painting bridges the gap between traditional painting and sculpture.

ARTSPACE: Embracing Women, Embracing Change is an exhibit of work created by women imprisoned at the Grand Valley Institute for Women (GVI), a federal prison located in Kitchener. The women participate in Fresh Start Creations, a program offered inside the institution and delivered through Community Justice Initiative’s Stride Program. Women in the prison participate in these programs on a voluntary basis.

Fresh Start Creations was born out of the popularity of the arts and crafts activities carried out on Stride Nights, offered once a week at GVI. Pieces created in this program are used to ‘give back’ to the community by raising funds from the sale of their creations. Fresh Start Creations art will also be available at WIGG (Women’s International Gift and Gallery) YWCA (Cambridge), and the Accelerator Centre (Waterloo) in addition to the Community Justice Initiatives office on Queen Street South, Kitchener.

Moneys from the sale of these works are held in an account until $500 is raised. Then a local women’s or children’s charity is chosen by the women of GVI to receive the donation. The chosen recipient is invited to the institution where the cheque is presented directly from the women to the charity. Donations are made after each $500 in sales is achieved. A different group is chosen each time.

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Artist Receptions - November 8, 2012

Interrupted Horizons




Embracing Women, Embracing Change

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Artist-in-residence wraps up year with exhibit in Rotunda Gallery
City of Kitchener | Link



For his last instalment of the Kitchener artist-in-residence program, Jefferson Campbell-Cooper continues investigating perception of the landscape around us, in the Rotunda Gallery for the month of December. The Berlin Tower ARTSPACE features RESIGHT, an exhibit by participants in the Meet Joe Art program, a Lake Joe CNIB Camp art program for people experiencing vision loss.

ROTUNDA: Campbell-Cooper’s detailed drawings of the six remaining railway bridges that cross the Grand River stretch across the Rotunda Gallery exhibition space. The bridges stand as historical artifacts and modern essentials to the larger rail network of North America, and in doing so also entwine the development of the area in controversy.

His study of the railway bridges in our community ties in nicely with his year-long project, The People's Museum of Kitchener. For his project, Campbell-Cooper created a large and detailed map of the Kitchener area. In March, September and October 2012, visitors to the Berlin Tower ARTSPACE were invited to walk on the map and add updates and changes, including their travel routes, landmarks, spots of historical significance and points of personal interest.

The contour line map he created is based on a 2010 Government of Canada topographical survey, cross-referenced with Google Earth. The map is detailed with wooded areas showing a specific density and maturity, a section of the Grand River and its tributaries, existing rail lines and most highways, roads, and cul-de-sacs.

Because the map was based on sources which are now a few years out of date, Campbell-Cooper found community participants had valuable feedback for additions and amendments to the map, including road extensions and roundabouts, especially in redeveloping neighbourhoods. There are actually many small hamlets and towns that have now been amalgamated and make up the city of Kitchener we know today. Campbell-Cooper also facilitated community participation through a number of public events, such as The Word on the Street and the King Street Art Market.

Jefferson Campbell-Cooper has been exploring and documenting the circumstances of our relationship with nature, through drawing, sculpture, and performance. Exhibiting in Canada and the US, he has also participated in numerous residencies and bi-annuals, and his national park projects include locations in Texas, New Mexico, the Yukon, and Newfoundland.

ARTSPACE: The RESIGHT exhibition, Meet Joe Art, features the work of participants from the program at the Lake Joe CNIB Camp. All works, except for a couple created by a couple of the instructors, are from those living with a visual impairment. The arts education program, created by an artists’ collective including Mike Smalley, Yvonne Felix and Richard Holloway, was granted by the Ontario Arts Council in March 2012.

Resight plans to expand the program by breaking down barriers and providing eye-opening art experiences to people throughout the province, and across the country. The artists invite anyone striving for the same goals to join their team.

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Galleries feature art with global perspective
January 30, 2013 | City of Kitchener | Link



An exhibit portraying familiar landscapes, scenes and faces from our region and art celebrating the lunar new year creates the backdrop for the February exhibits of the Rotunda Gallery and Berlin Tower ARTSPACE.

Rotunda Gallery: Momcilo Simic’s A Glimpse into the Landscapes and People of our Region allows beauty to remain in the eyes of the beholder.

“I am in pursuit for beauty in this visual world, in and around us, its complicity and meanings, its mystery. I want to find it, share and emphasize it,” says Simic, who was born and raised in a small town in the former Yugoslavia. “I don’t romanticize or idealize. I believe that the power of true beauty can only make us better and bring us closer to each other. It brings out the good in us, if treated well. I am also aware that, sometimes, beauty is a dangerous magic.”

A member of the Portrait Society of Canada, Simic is completely self-taught. He was a practicing psychologist when he drew a picture of his wife by candlelight and discovered he could make “something from nothing.”

“Contrary to my work at the hospital, art gave me a concrete result,” he says. “There is something divine about that. I couldn’t ignore what happened and it was the beginning of my new career.”

He brought five paintings to Canada, and now makes a living selling his paintings. During his relatively short career, he has sold more than 100 paintings in many countries for private and corporate collections. He also recently opened a 3,500-square-foot gallery in St. Jacobs called Gallery MOMO.

Berlin Tower ARTSPACE: 新年快樂 THE MUSEUM brings articles from the Treasures of China exhibit in celebration of Lunar New Year. Launch the Year of the Snake at Kitchener City Hall on Feb. 8 at 11:30 a.m. with sculptural works, hand-painted wall hangings and watercolors. Xin Nian Kuai Le!

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City hall art spaces feature the gritty and the absurd for March
City of Kitchener | Link



Graffiti and fables are two ways to tell a story about culture, and the galleries at Kitchener city hall feature both for the month of March.

Rotunda Gallery: James Nye’s Manifest Expression: Europe 2.0 is part of an ongoing series of paintings, titled Manifest Expression, that study visual reactions to an environment. The paintings are elements of discovered graffiti and the landscape it inhabits.

“Most recently my travels took me to Europe on a bicycle trip with my mother. We followed the Danube River from its source in southern Germany to the heart of Austria, through Slovakia and into Hungary,” says artist James Nye. “What I discovered was a continuous, cultural thread of creative expression in the form of graffiti. In my paintings, the beauty is in looking, and not necessarily what you are looking at, so whether they are clouds, graffiti or people mean little. What matters to me is how these things are shaped through the principles of light.”

The paintings feature two visual languages that meet at the same time. One language is the graffiti that someone was compelled to create; the other language is the landscape, or the location, of the graffiti. These languages explore the ideas of creative expression, identity and territory.

“The aim of this exhibition is not to advocate for or against graffiti. It is to highlight the fact that creative expression is an integral part of what it means to be human. For thousands of years people have been writing on walls and still do. The walls may have changed and the marking tools may have evolved, but the one constant is that people feel compelled to express themselves,” says Nye, who lives in Kitchener. “The interaction of graffiti with the landscape offers a new way of seeing both. Equally visible, each element can be focused on individually, but will always revert back to the physical meeting of the two. I believe that this way, the evidence of beauty is revealed.”

Space: Rotunda Gallery

Month: March 2013

Title: Manifest Expression: Europe 2.0

Artist: James Nye

Reception: Thursday, March 7, 5-7 p.m.

Berlin Tower ARTSPACE: Ottawa-based painter Carol Wainio explores narrative and aesthetic conflict within a single pictorial space in her exhibition, Old Masters, which is an off-site component of a larger exhibition at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery from March 8 – April 28. Old Masters will be in the ARTSPACE for the month of March.

In a selection of lush and textured paintings, she revisits early fables, among them Puss in Boots, drawing attention to a recurring theme of interplay between animals and humans. She uses distinct costuming to indicate class differences among the animals and the humans.

Wainio’s animals are cast as creatures who sometimes occupy the world of the evidently misguided and authoritarian humans. Humanized animal characters wearing what looks like Victorian finery appear prominently in her work. Because these animals seem to belong to a different period of values and concerns, the vignettes of abstract landscapes appear to be dissolving, and contribute to a sense of latent absurdity.

A closer look at her work reveals layers of references that refer to our ongoing evolution in relation to media, representation and authenticity.

Space: Berlin Tower ARTSPACE

Month: March 2013

Title: Old Masters

Artist: Carol Wainio

[Carrie Kozlowski]

Attention artists: Rotunda Gallery call for entry for 2014 exhibits now open

the gallery
The Rotunda Gallery is a unique exhibition space located on the ground floor of Kitchener city hall. The curved, wooden hanging wall includes 48 feet of vertical hanging space above a wall-length bench where visitors linger. The gallery features monthly exhibits of original work by outstanding visual artists.
call for entry
Visual artists with professional curricula vitae are invited to submit exhibition proposals for the Rotunda Gallery’s 2014 schedule. Proposals must be received by Thursday, September 12, 2013 at 4 p.m. Please visit www.kitchener.ca/callsforentry for details and submission requirements.

The exhibition program at the Rotunda Gallery supports professional contemporary practice in the visual arts. To promote the local development of visual arts, artists from Waterloo region are given preference. Proposals are selected by a jury of visual arts professionals, and are reviewed for quality of artistic work and professional credentials.

Thank you,
Carrie Kozlowski

Program Assistant, Arts and Culture | Economic Development | City of Kitchener
519-741-2200 ext. 7912 | TTY 1-866-969-9994 | carrie.kozlowski@kitchener.ca

[UrbanWaterloo]

Artist Reception - March 7, 2013

Old Masters


Manifest Expression: Europe 2.0

[UrbanWaterloo]

Galleries feature work of professional and amateur photographers
City of Kitchener | Link

Photography is at the centre of both exhibits at Kitchener City Hall for the month of April, as the details of life and nature are seen through a lens by professional and amateur photographers.

Rotunda Gallery: Janusz Wrobel’s Georgian Bay Ebb and Flow exhibition in the Rotunda Gallery reveals shorelines as an integral feature of the Canadian landscape, and as a meeting place for the three states of matter: earth, water and air.

“They become gathering places. We have built our cities along the banks of rivers and the coast of seas,” says Wrobel. “Shorelines fuel our curiosity and our imagination, and foster our initiative. We long to find out what lies within and beyond them.”

Wrobel, who spends weeks travelling by canoe through the country, sees photography as a “mirror of intent” that reflects a reality shaped by the intentions of the artist. His trips have taken him from the Great Lakes to James Bay, covering areas only accessible by canoe or bush plane. This isolation is reflected in his artistic process: a solo traveler, he creates compositions that uncover the precise details amongst the vastness of the Canadian wilderness. In doing so, his photographs aim to provoke the viewer to consider their own relationship to the natural world, to the grand and the minute.

He processes his images using techniques he learned in darkrooms throughout his professional career. Born in Poland, Wrobel performs all stages of printing, finishing and framing using natural and water-based materials. His work is represented in private and corporate collections in Canada, Poland, Great Britain, Germany, Japan and the United States. Some of his images can be found online at www.januszwrobel.com.

There will be a reception opening the exhibit on Thursday, April 4 from 5-7 p.m. at the Rotunda Gallery.



Berlin Tower ARTSPACE: The winning photographs from the sixth annual Kitchener Public Library’s amateur photography contest, presented by Kitchener Public Library, Waterloo Region Record and the City of Kitchener, will be on display in city hall’s Berlin Tower ARTSPACE throughout the month of April.

Photographs were submitted under four categories: people, architecture, animals and landscape.

All winning photographers will be honoured at a special awards ceremony at Kitchener City Hall on Wednesday, April 3 at 7 p.m. During this time, head judge Rod Frketich, photo editor at the Waterloo Region Record, will provide insightful commentary about why each photograph was selected. The general public is welcome to attend the awards ceremony and meet the photographers during a reception afterwards in the Berlin Tower ARTSPACE. For more information, please call 519-743-0271 x255.

A selection of the winning photographs will also appear in an upcoming edition of the Waterloo Region Record and a slide show of all winning photos will be available on the Kitchener Public Library and Waterloo Region Record’s websites.

[Lens]

I was lucky enough to be a winner in the KPL photo contest this year and last nights event was a great way to honor the winners and enjoy all the great photos. Thanks to everyone who helped put the contest together this year!

[EdM]

Congrats Lens!