A Day, A Week, Hemant, A Year

For all of the years that I have lived in Saskatoon, I had never visited the Mendel Art Gallery. I’m not sure why, but I just never got around to it. So to remedy this oversight, I decided to head over to the gallery this past Sunday. For those who are not familiar with the Mendel, here’s a brief description from their website.

Indeed, the Mendel Art Gallery is at the forefront of recasting the image and vibrancy of the City of Bridges as a major creative cultural centre in Saskatchewan and Canada. We recognize our role and responsibility not merely as stewards of the art objects we collect, preserve, research, and present, but as a potent agent of social change, driven by the multiple social, cultural, and educational possibilities of an expanded vision for the public art museum.

Through synergistic partnerships with contemporary artists and curators, like-minded organizations, special interest groups, and progressive members of the local business community, we demonstrate, on a daily basis, the necessity of art to the quality of life, and to the cohesion and advancement of Saskatoon as a first–rate, creative city.

Prior to leaving for the Mendel, I visited their website to see what the current exhibits were. There were two in particular that I was most interested in seeing. One was called “COOLART” which is an exhibit displaying artwork by students of Saskatoon’s schools. The other was “artistsbyartists” featuring the work of two Saskatoon artists – Yuka Yamaguchi, a self-taught artist born in Kobe Japan, and Dave Geary whose politcal work focuses on a “Great Saskatchewan Socialist Utopia that never was.”

The gallery is free to the public, but there is a donation box so I threw some money into that before making my way to the “artistsbyartists” exhibit. Yuka Yamaguchi’s work is described in the following manner. I tend to agree with it.

Her drawings are inward-looking, reaching both extremes of cute and the grotesque.

Looking at her work I found them interesting, but difficult to determine the meaning of. I thought I had a pretty good idea about some of them, but most of them were just way out there. This led me back to a bio of her at the start of the exhibit in hopes of getting a few hints to where she was coming from. It stated something along the lines of her work being done on the fly, with her just drawing without knowing where it would take her, without meaning. This definitely made sense. For example there was one piece that had a little girl sitting on the ground with a dismembered leg. She was proceeding to braid the muscles and tendons that were protruding from the piece that was still attached to her. Another one entitled “Inside of Me”, was of a fish impaling that same little girl.

The first piece I saw by Dave Geary was of two plush, stuffed animals. One of them was shaped like the province of Saskatchewan, and the other one was fashioned after a Saskatoon Berry. I said something along the lines of, “What the fuh?” As I made my way through the rest of his work, these two characters actually made sense, and went along with the rest of his pieces. Here’s a brief bio of him taken from the Mendel’s website.

Dave Geary is well-known as an artist, designer, cartoonist and zine producer. Images represented in artistsbyartists are a continuation of a political poster project Geary began in 2005 entitled The Great Saskatchewan Socialist Utopia that never was.

On display were Geary’s pieces that are influenced by posters found in 20th century socialist movements throughout eastern Europe. Geary takes the look of these posters and adds his own twist on them to fit into his “The Great Saskatchewan Socialist Utopia that never was” project. I generally liked them and thought they were quite clever.

The “COOLART” exhbition was in the main gallery so I made my way over there. I was surprised to find out that the Mendel presents the work of about two hundred students from kindergarten to grade twelve. There was a wide range of artwork including drawings, collages, sculptures, photography, and paintings. A lot of the work was very impressive, even from some of the younger participants. There are definitely some talented artists in Saskatoon.

There were two other exhibits in the main gallery including “Articulation Express : Celebrating Ahasiw” which looks at the life of aboriginal performance artist Ahasiw Maskegon-Iskwew. There was a movie playing, but I only watched it for a few moments.

“Lasting Impressions : Celebrated Works from the Gallery of Hamilton” has made its way through six venues across Canada. This exhibit focused on the modern art movement of early 20th century art – some of the most defining times in Canadian Art. I made my way this exhibit, but honestly I had little interest.

Overall I’m glad I finally made my way to the Mendel Art Gallery. I thoroughly enjoyed the two exhibits I specifically went to see, and will definitely keep my eye on the new exhibits that will go on display in the future. I’m already looking forward to the next “artistbyartist” featuring Sonya Adams who finds, “inspiration for her disquieting drawings from the remains of outmoded communications technology.” Sounds interesting. If you’ve never been to the Mendel, or haven’t been there in a long time, I highly recommend heading out there and supporting this Saskatoon gem.