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yegarts · 7 years

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New in Public Art for 2018

The tinsel has settled, and 2018 is underway. For the EAC, this means new projects, public gatherings, and artistic endeavours of every type as we work to support and promote Edmonton's arts community. For the public art and conservation teams, a new year heralds additions to the Public Art Collection ‘family’.

The construction of libraries, parks, recreation facilities, and other municipal assets triggers the Percent for Art policy, which in turn brings a diverse array of art to our communities. Percent for Art is the city mechanism that stipulates 1% of eligible construction costs for publicly accessible projects is dedicated to acquiring art for, or adjacent to, the facility.The City of Edmonton Public Art Collection currently numbers 239 artworks by 302 artists, nearly 70% of whom are local (or were at the time of selection).

This year, Edmonton is set to welcome 18 works of art, including six at ᐄᓃᐤ (ÎNÎW) River Lot 11∞ - Edmonton’s Indigenous Art Park. Seven are by Indigenous artists; five by Edmonton artists; three by Canadian artists and one each by an international artist and Alberta artist. The new works represent mosaic, murals, sculptures, and glass art.

In addition, integrated artworks at the Valley Line South East to Downtown stops will be installed, although not available to the public until the line opens. Locations for 2018 include Calder Library, South Haven Cemetery, Jasper Place Leisure Centre, Borden Park Natural Swim Experience, Ivor Dent Sports Park, Dermott Park, North East Transit Garage, Valley Zoo, and the Quarters Downtown.

Read on for a quick preview of what to expect over the next 12 months. Clicking the links will take you to the City of Edmonton Public Art Collection Online Gallery for information about the artists.

Detail of Calder Community Mosaic

Calder Community Mosaic – Calder Library – Spacemakeplace; Rebecca Bayer & David Gregory (Vancouver, BC)

This 4.8m x 2.4m mosaic mural is located in the Community Room of the Edmonton Public Library’s Calder Branch. Each part of the overall pattern was sourced directly from members of the Calder Community who attended one of the community pattern workshops held in 2016. The mosaic is visible from the library’s forecourt as people arrive at the library’s front entrance, offering a friendly invitation in a universal language of colour and geometric pattern. The mosaic is made of ~7500 custom-made triangular stained glass tiles. The ten different colours of tile used in the mosaic were inspired by the Alberta environment.

Rendering of Veil

Veil - South Haven Cemetery – Brendan McGillicuddy & Jeffrey Riedl (Calgary, AB)

Veil is a large fabric-like lattice of airy line work appearing to billow from the South Haven Cemetery Service Building’s rectilinear geometry. The artwork’s delicacy and flow elegantly compliments the design and materials of the building it inhabits, and is empathetic to the sensitive context of the cemetery. The imagery evokes medieval Vanitas, or memento mori paintings, which reflect on mortality, the vanity of life, and transient nature of existence. Cloth, or empty clothing, is used to represent absence and loss.

Rendering of Plantains

Plantains – Belvedere Transit Centre – Karen Campos (Edmonton, AB)

Three individual sculptures of plantain bundles are arranged to represent their natural growth on trees. The sculptures are inspired by the artist’s experience as a Salvadoran immigrant in Edmonton, finding comfort through foods that bring back a sense of home. The intention of the artwork is to speak to the diversity of the Belvedere neighbourhood where Campos was raised, while honouring a staple of many regional diets from South America to China. Plantains will bring a sense of visual warmth to the space that will shelter commuters, especially on dark winter days.

Rendering of Ripples on a Pond

Ripples on a Pond - Borden Park Natural Swim Experience – William Frymire (Métis Nation of British Columbia – Prince George, BC)

This colourful mosaic resembles a small pond featuring three native Albertan aquatic species – the Western Painted Turtle, the Leopard Frog and the dragonfly. Rendered in a postmodernist style, the mosaic embraces the past but is a contemporary take on an ancient art form. The endangered Western Painted Turtle is the only resident native freshwater turtle of Alberta. The Northern Leopard Frog’s numbers are dwindling and dragonflies are a key sign of pond health. All are interdependent species susceptible to human modification of our natural environment. The mosaic’s illusion of a shallow pond conveys this message in a playful and fun manner while underlining the natural filtration of the pool’s ecosystem.

Mosaic bird sample

Spring is Sprung, the Grass is Riz (I Wonder where the Birdie is?) - Dermott Park – Karen Klassen & Erin Pankratz (Edmonton, AB)

This playful mosaic wall will evoke a vibrant spring garden. Vivacious coloured flora and a variety of greens will all create a pageant of liveliness. Park users are encouraged to touch the mosaic as they search for, and find, the fantastical birds hidden amongst the flowers.

Artists Erin Pankratz and Karen Klassen have based this piece on this sweet and humorous (anonymous) poem that Erin’s late bird-watching father used to recite every spring:

Spring is sprung, the grass is riz / I wonder where the boidie is? / Da boidie he is on da wing! / Ain’t dat absoid, I thought the wing was on da boid?

Artist maquettes: Top, left to right, Amy Malbeuf, Duane Linklater, Mary Anne Barkhouse; Bottom, left to right, Marianne Nicholson, Tiffany Shaw-Collinge, Jerry Whitehead

ᐄᓃᐤ (ÎNÎW) River Lot 11∞ - Queen Elizabeth Park Indigenous Art Park – Various Artists (Canadian Indigenous)

ᐄᓃᐤ (ÎNÎW) River Lot 11∞, will feature six artworks by Canadian Indigenous artists that “tell the story of this place”. The artworks and artists are: Iskotew Amy Malbeuf (Rich Lake, Alberta), Pehonan Tiffany Shaw-Collinge (Edmonton, Alberta), Mikikwan Duane Linklater (Moose Cree First Nation, Ontario), Turtle Jerry Whitehead (James Smith First Nation, Saskatchewan), Reign Mary Anne Barkhouse (Nimpkish Band, Kwakiutl First Nation), and Preparing to Cross the Sacred River Marianne Nicolson (Dzawada’enuxw Nation).

The park name is pronounced (EE-NU) River Lot 11. ᐄᓃᐤ (ÎNÎW) is a Cree word meaning “I am of the Earth”. The art park is situated on ancestral lands of the Indigenous peoples whose descendants entered into Treaty with the British Crown resulting in the territory opening for settlement. River Lot 11 acknowledges the historic river lot originally home to Métis landowner Joseph McDonald. The park is located within Queen Elizabeth Park in Edmonton’s North Saskatchewan River Valley.

Rendering of In Spiral Arches

In Spiral Arches - Ivor Dent Sports Park – Dylan Toymaker (Edmonton, AB)

A rotational array of nine curved arches, like boomerangs or the arc of a swinging limb from the pivot of a joint, wrap around each street light pole in a spiral formation. The arches are made of aluminum, powder coated to a range of vibrant, metallic colours. The array position creates an illusion of movement as the observer moves past.

Rendering of Neon Prairie

Neon Prairie - Jasper Place Leisure Centre – Victoria Wiercinski (Edmonton, AB)

Designer and print artist Victoria Wiercinski has created a multi-layered, hand-painted mural on panels featuring a unique, brightly patterned modern drawing of prairie skyscapes. Drawing on the idea of a leisure centre pool as a year-round 'lake', this mural fills in the gaps, providing a sense of the sky. The final artwork design is inspired by imagery derived through a community workshop that took place in 2016.

Maquette of Everything We Can Almost Remember ...

Everything We Can Almost Remember, Everything We Can Always Discover - Kinistinaw Park – Studio F Minus (Toronto, ON)

This project, tentatively titled Everything We Can Almost Remember, Everything We Can Always Discover begins by looking to the existing site of Kinistinàw Park for artifacts, symbols and icons already present in the community. Replicas of the lions that used to adorn the Harbin Gate, will be fabricated in translucent resin layers reminiscent of an archaeological dig site. Personal artifacts donated by community members reflecting the site’s history and current community will be cast and suspended in the layers.

Artwork by Edmonton-based Métis artist Tiffany Shaw-Collinge will be featured on the park shelter.

Rendering of Animal Farmily

Animal Farmily - Nature’s Wild Backyard, Valley Zoo – Leu Webb (Toronto, ON)

Animal Farmily is a colourful and playful public art wall sculpture that invites discovery and interaction while providing a prelude for children’s and adults’ visit as guests into the animals’ home. The variety of profiles and colours of the Animal Farmily panels can be read as a story, one that expresses both the diversity of the different shapes and sizes of the animals and emphasizes the unity of their shared habitat and environment. How does a chicken play with a pig? How does a goat say good morning to a cow? Tails flick, heads dip, chicks appear and disappear as the poses and positions come to life through the flipping of the movable panels, an action that can be carried out by children or assisted by adults, as when reading a storybook together at home.

Rendering of 53°30’N

53°30’N - Northeast Transit Garage – Thorsten Goldberg (Berlin, Germany)

53°30’N is a collection of five topographic models depicting mountain landscapes from locations sitting on the same latitude (53°) as Edmonton. They will be cast in the scale of 1:1.000 and mounted upright on the facing sides of the lanterns on the roof of the North East Transit Garage building.

The models depict locations in five geographic areas: Mount Chown (Alberta), the crater of Mount Okmok (Umnak Island in the Aleutians), Zhupanovsky Crater (Kamchatka, Russia), an unnamed landscape near Dacaodianzi, Heilongjiang Sheng (China) and Mweelrea (Connaught, Ireland). The artistic concept is inspired by what the artist calls the “globe game”- placing your finger on a specific location and rotating the globe to see what other locations lie along a specific latitude.

Renderings of The Magpies’ Nests

The Magpies’ Nests - Rossdale Linear Park – Kevin Sehn & Chai Duncan (Alberta)

Rossdale Linear Park is a slice of nature in in an urban setting. The Magpies’ Nests considers the complex interactions between humans and nature as well as the concept of “home”. The welded steel nests on top of four plinths relate to structures found in Edmonton. The pyramid references the Muttart Conservatory; the cube stands in for local industrial buildings relating to ideas of innovation and productivity; the pentagonal prism, or house -shape, represents dwellings found the surrounding community; the sphere represents the magpie’s own expertly built domed nest.

Rendering of The Dancer

The Dancer - Yorath House – Totino Busby Design (Edmonton, AB)

The Dancer is a human-scale abstracted representation of a figure in motion. The sculpture is based on an ink brush drawing. The artists’ intention is that the sculpture will impart a feeling of thought, presence, and inspiration to the viewer. Totino Busby Design believes that public art should challenge the viewer, spark curiosity, and heighten the human spirit.

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