Annual Members Show 2024

Review of the 27th Annual Members Show

Kristen Scholfield-Sweet

Seeing the Language of Art

Art is a language received through the senses, and viewing the Member’s Show at the Old Schoolhouse Gallery is a perfect opportunity to learn how this visual language creates feelings and messages when we look at the art works.

EMPHASIS

The artist may use colour, complexity, size, or repetition to create emphasis. In a group show, works can be hung together to create patterns of emphasis. Find those groupings of work in the gallery whose arrangement emphasizes strong colour, the repetition of bold shapes or sizes, the complexity of surface detail.

VARIETY

The artist creates variety using themes and variations within and among works. In a group show works may be hung together that create a visual story, not imposed by the person installing the works, but by the shared similarities and variations of materials, colours, and themes already present in the individual works. Notice as you view the show how some arrangements share a subject, material or colour, and then when you look more closely, they also share similarities in how the surface is treated or the material is handled.

BALANCE

The artist creates a felt balance in the art piece by working with visual weight, and with differences in colour and size. In a group show works hung together create a sensation of psychological balance using symmetrical or asymmetrical compositions. Find those groups of works that use visual weight, colour relationships and symmetry to create a felt sense of balance.

RHYTHM

The artist creates visual rhythms by controlling the placement and sequence of shapes, colours and

surface textures. In a group show the placement of works can create dramatic visual pathways that lead the viewer into a complex network of forces; a constellation of energies. Notice how the placement of some works in the show creates paths of visual movement between the pieces.

Some individual art works create such a strong constellation of energy, that we feel a sense of unity, we understand the visual language we see, and we receive the artist’s message behind the surface appearance, even when the artist does not offer words of explanation.

I will be conducting a walking tour of the Members Show on Friday, June 14 at 7 pm at the Gallery to explore the language of art--by thinking like an artist.

Much appreciation to the 26 artists who contributed their work to the Annual Member's Show: Amy Robertson, Ann Mortifee, Ayami Stryck, Brian Hayden, Brig Weiler, Brooke Anderson, Christann Kennedy, Dale Thomas, Darshan Stevens, Denise Drury, Donna Naven, Donna Collins, Ebony Rose, Gerri Davis, Heidi Hueniken, Jane Newman, Karen McDiarmid, Kathleen Pemberton, Kristen Schofield-Sweet, Lana Ringrose, the late Lisa Gibbons, Meinsje Vlaming, Oriane Lee Johnston, Pamela Boles, Rick Bockner and Tianna Hope (nee Barton).