This spring, the Whyte Museum will fill its main gallery with artwork created by Calgary-based artist Chris Flodberg, the Bow Valley’s David Foxcroft of Calgary’s Edge Galleries.
The exhibitions will run April 2 through to June 12, with an opening reception on Saturday (April 2). The opening reception begins at 6 p.m. for museum members and the general public is welcome at 7 p.m.
Foxcroft’s mixed-media collages, featured in the exhibition David Foxcroft – A Timely Survey, stem from a magpie-like attraction to glittery objects and an underlying tendency to hoard. This quirkiness has been quintessential to his art form. For the artist, a dishevelled pile of junk is greeted with sheer delight.
“He’s incredible, imagine what it would be like to be able to throw a bunch of things up into the air and when it lands to be able to see incredible design and order within that,” said Whyte Museum curator Anne Ewen.
“He’s able to turn that into defined, distinct collages.”
In some works, randomly found wood and metal objects, canvas scraps and construction remnants are retrieved and skillfully re-constructed into multi-layered abstractions. The resulting intricate images provide a thoughtful and enduring visual experience.
Flodberg is mostly committed to landscape, but his repertoire includes a wide variety of subjects and approaches. This versatility is unusual among contemporary artists, as is his virtuosity.
“This show we’ve done in conjunction with Masters Gallery out of Calgary ... and I’ve been a fan of Chris’s work for some time, I was blown away,” said Ewen. “He has an amazing ability with his brushstrokes, colourization and with memory and being able to draw upon that for his works.”
Flodberg summons images of master painters from his photographic memory and combines each with personal experiences. His oil compositions, featured in the exhibition Chris Flodberg: In Review, 1990 to 2014, are richly coloured, subtly textured and stunningly original.
Also opening on April 2, The Landscape of Ernest Lamarque will feature paintings of the Canadian West by Hudson’s Bay Company factor and surveyor, Ernest C. W. Lamarque (1879-1970). Author Jay Sherwood will attend The Whyte Museum on April 21 to discuss his latest book The Landscape of Ernest Lamarque: Artist, Surveyor and Renaissance Man, 1879-1970.
Lamarque’s career as surveyor and Hudson’s Bay Company clerk spanned Western Canada. He documented his work and the people that he met through writing, art and photography, much of which is now housed at the Whyte Museum.
The publication of this book coincides with the museum’s exhibition of Lamarque’s artwork.
“Jay was in our archives working away on researching Lamarque and, dedicated to writing this book, he realized what a substantial collection of Lamarque’s watercolour paintings we had,” Ewen said. “Like many amateur painters of his era he would sit down at the edge of a lake and do a watercolour and the scenes are great because they provide a look at areas that have been changed substantially.”
