Artist Tiziana La Malia works on her exhibit at the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie. Photo by Curtis Galbraith.

By Curtis Galbraith

Arts

BC artist first participant in local Artist in Residency program

Jun 27, 2019 | 12:49 PM

The Art Gallery of Grande Prairie has started its first Artist Residency program, a joint effort with the Euphemia McNaught Homestead Society.

B.C. artist Tiziana La Melia says she was invited to take part by people at the Gallery but also wanted to come here because a favourite aunt used to live in Grande Prairie.

“So, its kind of been like this imaginary place in my head, Grande Prairie, that I had been kind of fixated on as a kid, so I thought it’s kind of interesting. It’s not a real precise reason, but it’s was kind of like reason enough to want to visit, I think.”

She adds it has “been fun to experience this really beautiful part of the country.”

La Melia also says it has been good to hear stores from the people who work at the McNaught Homestead about the artists who came before her.

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“It was really just nice to see and spend time and to dwell on the place where these women had lived and to find ways to connect to this history and to this creative energy in the region.”

La Melia has been here since May 30. Her exhibit called Rust Daughters Say It With Flowers opens at 7 pm Thursday night at the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie in the space named for Betty McNaught.

“I did some dying with rust because there was all of (these) abandoned agricultural tools on the homestead, so the rust is a reference to these activities that were happening.”

La Melia says a rubbing from the concrete foundation of a building that has since disappeared from the Homestead site will serve as a screen to show a film she shot in her own garden (pictured above and below). The exhibit will also include wooden panels inspired by shapes at the McNaught Homestead, panels that may resemble garden signs.

Photo by Curtis Galbraith

Also Thursday night, the Gallery is premiering a show called Pioneering Portraits, art from its permanent collection.

It will include works from the Estate of Bert Tieman, James AgrellSmith, Edward Bader, Donna Barrett, James Daubney, Ken HouseGo, Harold Klunder, RFM McInnis, Judi Moscovitch, Holly and Gordon Perret, Walter J. Phillips, and Jeanette L. Walker.

Photo by Curtis Galbraith