An Alternative Alberta Landscape Show. Sandra and Alana

An Alternative Alberta Landscape Show VIVIANEART is proud to present “Places-Species-Bodies, Walking Alberta,” an alternative presentation of our Alberta landscape by two Canadian artists who characteristically think outside of the box, Sandra Meigs and Alana Bartol. Both artists took a similar approach in the creation of the pieces included wandering out into the landscape and recording their observations as they walked and interacted with the spaces around them.

The paintings on view by Sandra Meigs, reflect her use of humour alongside an exceptionally refined painting practice. The source for these works is the Alberta Grasslands, specifically, Southern Alberta’s McIntyre Ranch. A 55,000-acre span of land, the Ranch, established in 1898 in Alberta’s Grasslands, has hosted many artists over the years and has been a site for artistic collaboration and research. Meigs visited the ranch numerous times over a twenty-eight-year period. The resulting paintings are her responses to the spirit of the Grasslands and the beauty she witnessed there.

In her series “A Woman Walking (the City Limits)”, Mohkinstsis (Calgary) based interdisciplinary artist Alana Bartol, employs walking as her medium in an exploration of the city boundaries of Calgary. The resulting collected objects, photographs, drawings and video from her walk, document her experiences as she attempted to trek the perimeter walking over 100km while using the City of Calgary map as a guide. Venturing along barbed wire fences, roadways, the Tsuut’ina Nation 145, private property, farmland, suburban sprawl, the Bow and Elbow rivers and the Bearspaw Dam, she was aware of the human traces around her, documenting objects that tell stories of our relationships to the land and each other.

“Places-Species-Bodies, Walking Alberta” will be on view at VIVIANEART’s brand new gallery space in Inglewood, Calgary, 24 July through 30 August, 2020.