Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 67

HUE VISUAL ARTS EDMONTON JOURNAL FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2008 F9 Art students Surface for MacEwan farewell Exhibition collects highlights from two years of work PREVIEW Surface Showing at Fine Art Studios, Grant MacEwan College (Jasper Place Campus), 10045 156th St. Until: April 24 1 1 ill i -m- mM i mil I I lL GILBERT BOUCHARD Special to The Journal EDMONTON if-' i id a 1 WALTER TYCHNOWICZ, THE JOURNAL Robert Genn holds his work Golden Offskid, while on the wall is his Sunset Heenan Point Lake of the Woods. Both are on display at the West End Gallery. Painter taps ubiquitous beauty Robert Germ's subjects include Queen Charlotte Islands, Rockies, Europe's ports As well as displaying Genn's paintings, the West End Gallery is also selling his richly illustrated coffee-table book, Love Letters to Art. LARRY WONG.

THE JOURNAL Craig Knox is one of the students with work on display in Surface. "I really didn't think it took this much work to put a show together," says Craig Knox, one of the program's students. like many of his peers in the program, he's sad to see the term come to an end, but and this is where the sweet part ofbittersweet comes in he's "chomping at the bit" to get to the next step. For him, that means preparing for studies next year at Concordia University in Montreal. "One of the reasons we called the show Surface is that we are surfacing into the world after our studies," he says.

Students in MacEwan's design studies program are also showing their work -f-from funky furniture prototypes to magazine projects at the Jasper Place campus until April 25. Tait in Sports 7 painted," Genn says. "Recently I was able to figure out from photos and his painted images, where (the Group of Seven's J.E.H.) MacDonald had worked the Rockies. I was able to paint with my feet on the very same rock he had rested his feet on when he painted, Like the late great Canadian landscape giant Tom Thomson, Genn is devoted both to plein-air painting and an attention to painterly design and composition inalushly coloured, highly impressionistic body of work. "My main concern in my landscapes is design," he says.

"A painting is all about form and formlessness and finding the right balance between light and shade a balance which takes a long time to get right." 1 3 J2 riff i Don't let the chilly weather deter you from enjoying this weekend's Spring Gallery Walk. Seven art galleries in the Gallery Walk area are displaying work by artists such as the aforementioned Robert Genn, Laird Goulet, Robert Lemay, Wendy Wacko and NAITs woodworking stu- dents. You can also enter to win $1,000 towards the purchase of artwork at the Art Gallery of Alberta's "Art on the Block" soiree on May 7. To participate, get your free 'Passport to Art' stamped at all seven galleries Agnes Bugera, Bearclaw, Douglas Udell, Electrum Design Studio, Scott, West End and Tu. The Gallery Walk area runs from Jasper Avenue at 123rd Street to 107th Avenue and 124th Street The galleries are open Saturday from 10 a.m.

to 5 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. The past week has been hectic and bittersweet for the graduating students of MacEwan's fine arts program. The hectic part, says program chairwoman Darci Mallon, has been the mounting of Surface, the fine art graduate exhibition that opens Saturday in the studios of the college's Jasper Place campus building. "The week started with the jury process, where the students put forward their favourite works, from which we selected the final 150 pieces that are in the show," she says. Works picked for the 2008 incarnation of the show represent two gruelling years undertaken by the 23 students, encompassing old-school drawing exercises, figure painting, hyper-contemporary multimedia and large-scale installations.

"What's the most remarkable is that this is only a twoyear-long program, a fact that is easy to forget, given the quality of the work in this show." After the jury work, the next step was to transform their sprawling and hard-used lower-level studio space into the show's exhibition area and actually mount the extensive show. As in previous years, all the art is for sale, ranging in price from $50 to $600. Into the game Dan Barnes Journal Sports Cam Tuesdays P1182. Leather, DVD. Low kms PREVIEW Robert Genn's Monuments Showing at: West End Gallery, 12308 Jasper Ave.

Until: Thursday Robert Genn has a serious case of artistic itchy feet. The B.C-based painter's new show of acrylic landscapes at the West End Gallery includes images depicting busy ports in Western Europe, Alberta's glo rious Rockies, the haunting majesty of the Queen Charlotte Islands and the is- land-rich and seldom painted Lake of the Woods in Manitoba. Ifs what I do. I take my paint-box with me when we travel, which includes upcoming trips to Vietnam and Italy," says Genn. In particular, he likes travelling to famous vistas painted by his predecessors and tracking down the exact location depicted in their works.

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