The featured exhibit runs June 1 – 30, 2024 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.⁠

 

Artist Reception: June 1 at 2:00 pm

 

Artist: Laurel Westlund

 

 

Artist Statement:

FALCONET is an installation of silkscreens that playfully depict a landscape of recurring nightmares. Arising from an unconscious mind confronted with uncertainties and nebulous fears, these skeletal ‘memento mori’ figures forge their way through the battles unphased. In this dreamlike realm they remind us to confront the fear of our inevitable mortality and find the beauty in the present moment. Drawing from Medieval imagery, the prints are created using hand-cut stencils screened onto wood, cut out and layered together. A collage of bold linework, saturated colours, and hints of lurid fluorescent hues- hidden layers emerge into glowing night scenes that only appear in the dark.

 

Laurel Westlund is an Edmonton-based visual artist with a background in Printmaking and Classics from the University of Alberta. With a love of history, and a touch of the absurd, her work uses themes of crisis to explore the nature of fear in our lives.

The featured exhibit runs May 1 – 31, 2024 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.⁠

 

Artist Reception: May 2 at 5:00 pm

 

Artist: Heather Noel

 

 

Artist Statement:
It started out of necessity, the need to use up some free 4×5 film without access to a large format camera. Fashioned from a dollar store cardboard box, a pop can, and some black tape, the pinhole camera captures images unmediated by lenses and digital sensors. Technological control is traded for playful acceptance, the security of precision is exchanged for the thrill of chance. Long exposure times invite motion blur and mystery artifacts, destabilizing the illusion of permanence. The single-photo nature of the camera provides welcome relief from the crippling infinity of contemporary image generation. Final images are digitally refined through cropping, retouching, dodging and burning, while still preserving pleasant imperfections.

 

Heather Noel was raised by herding dogs, children’s literature, and early 90s television on the farthest edge of Atlantic Canada. She graduated from NAIT in 2006 with a diploma in Photographic Technology, just as celluloid film was falling out of popularity, and cellphone cameras were on the rise. In the decades since, she has been slowly accumulating a collection of film cameras and maintaining a personal artistic practice. She has worked with super 8mm and 16mm motion picture film to make her own short films, and contributed to various local independent film projects. She is also obsessively dedicated to her full-time job as Metro Cinema’s programming manager.

The featured exhibit runs March 1 – 31, 2024 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.⁠

 

Artist Reception: Music Set by SinData – March 23 at 2:30 pm.

 

Artist: Will N-R

 

Artist Statement:
Will Northlich-Redmond’s aesthetic stems from an intensive focus on synaesthetic interdisciplinarity: creative works involving the confluence of visuality and sound. As a composer-performer and multi-instrumentalist primarily, Will’s musical endeavors portray significant elements of impactful visual expression – e.g. graphic scoring, mixed media performances, choreographed movement, videography, and interpretive conducting. Will’s visual artistic practice, currently within a digital medium, draws upon improvisation, escapism, immersion, and sonic freneticism to produce organized chaos; images of distorted reality, fantasy, and chromatic spontaneity, qualities which are ubiquitous in Will’s music. Each unique painting is printed as a series of five images.

 

Will Northlich-Redmond (aka Will N-R aka BlipVert) is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist. His musical work has been featured all over the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Work has been supported by the National Gugak Center (Seoul, South Korea), the NYU Vilar Global Fellows, Amsterdam’s STEIM Center, the Wesleyan University Laptop Ensemble and Balinese Gamelan Ensemble, the Portland Flute Society, the Ojai Art Center, the NYU New Music Ensemble, and New Music Edmonton. Will performs electronic music under the pseudonym BlipVert, which features some of his most personal and extreme compositions.

 

The featured exhibit runs February 1 – 29, 2024 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.⁠

 

Artist Reception: February 3 at 2PM.⁠

 

Artist: Lindsey Campbell

 

Lindsey Campbell (she/her) is an Edmonton-based cinephile, artist, and author. She is a professional film watcher, a regular contributor on CJSR’s Moving Radio, and a member of Metro’s programming committee. Over the years, Lindsey has worked for the Telluride Film Festival, MountainFilm, Calgary Underground Film Festival (CUFF and CUFF Docs), and NorthwestFest. Her long-term ‘photo of the day’ project is now in its 14th year. She is proud to present The Booth, a series of photographs taken from her time in various projection booths and movie theatres over the years.

The featured exhibit runs January 1 – 31, 2024 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.⁠

 

Artist Reception: January 4 at 5:30PM.⁠

 

Artist: Shelley Paley

 

Artist Statement:

Definition Benevolent: Kindness and open-heartedness curiosity in Allowing: opportunity to wholistic embody self-acceptance and self-awareness in each of one’s experiences This art exhibit depicts one human’s personal creative development of benevolent allowing of self to reframe and heal family of origin relationships. The artist is using the spiritual medicine of nature in our urban river valley for grounding and self-regulation and as a safe therapeutic space for temporary eco-art installations. Using art in therapy as a vehicle to explore things relational dynamics that are alive in the present moment through spontaneous artmaking and specifically offered art therapy experientials to explore one’s subconscious knowing that surfaces within the relationship with a professional art therapist. These art images are visual processes exploring the use of temporary eco-art installations in our Edmonton River valley for redevelopment of embodied self-compassion and self-appreciation.

 

Shelley Paley (she/they) is an Edmontonian who has worked as a teacher and art specialist with K-12 children for the past fifteen years. She is passionate about the varied ways we as humans use art to make and reform meaning throughout our lives. Shelley is drawn to creative collaboration with others including in the classroom, and in group art therapy invitations. She is responsive to each of her art therapy client’s current needs. Shelley has personally leaned into art processes, and she has experienced healing through art therapy. Within her worldview of everything is sacred or nothing is sacred, Shelley continues to develop her professional art therapy practice as a second-year art therapy student at Kutenai Art Therapy Institute.

The featured exhibit runs December 1 – 31, 2023 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.⁠

 

Artist Reception: December 9 at 2PM.⁠

 

Artist: D.N.E.

 

Artist Statement:

 

I find visualizing the space a show is going to inhabit before commencing its physical manifestation really heightens my clarity and intuition regarding it. In the case of the Metro Gallery, there are two walls parallel from one another. This has directly inspired ‘Excavation/Flammable, We are All!’. Side Flammable is a wall covered in a dozens of fires ranging in size from 3”x 5” to 40” x 60”. Side Excavation ranges from 6” x 9” to 20” x 72” and also contains new works from my ongoing ‘Intent is Power’ series. Both walls are unified by two things: sigils and a poem written specifically for this purpose- unification. Sigils alone are something that could warrant much elaboration (see website)- they are vitalizing to my process. All I will say on that front is that a sigil is a consciously created symbol that works subconsciously and that it was an eureka moment for me to realize the power added to my art when I moved them from years of notebook after notebook into a visual ritual practice; something in which I cannot unsee.

 

Excavation works are the onset of another ongoing series. In these the sigils are far less pronounced, instead building up to create a layered, textured background to the intuitive shapes presented. Each form is an aspect of self. I had a vision for an album cover for the 4 way split my main band plus one of my solo projects are collaborating on and it is this piece – Four Allied Forms – that realized this stream of more subtly shared sigil work. Drawing comparison to a series of mine from 2012 called ‘Portrait of a Shadow’ galvanized a more introspective meaning to this current work. For the most part the forms are stripped down to a near silhouette existence. They are but shadows on the wall, yet they bring awareness to the essence all the same, if not more powerfully from a subconscious standpoint. I find these works to be more personal.

 

The title ‘Flammable, We are All!’ was taken from a book of poetry I wrote in 2017. More recently this title was reused for a noise/drums album of another of my solo projects and I’d painted a fire for the cover. This was Flammable, We are All! I’. The next 16 (II – XVII) were graphite & pastel works for the artist editions and everything in this show is everything since. The spiritual and alchemical nature of fire is something that has long inspired me.

 

 

 

Flammable, We are All!

 

Flammable, We are All!
The torch is in your heart,
Gateway to intuition,
True seat of consciousness.

 

Thought laden analytical mind-
Turns to ash when centred
When connected to wisdom innate.
Excavated not created
It was already there
Resonances of emboldened insight-
A mirror.

 

Staring at yourself through every perception
Not every chord truck that of recognition
Yet it is you all the same.
The deepest recesses of the mind
presenting shadows in broad daylight
Gifting opportune lessons
if humble enough to take them
paired with an awareness for change
For the unfurling of what is already known
but long forgotten
Shed at birth to toil for
Past illusion and sleep.

 

Transformative assignment
One in which the objective was misplaced,
carried away by the river of Lethe
and found in the pool of memory.

 

Flammable, We are All!
Flames quenched in Mnemosyne
The deeper the excavation goes
The more unadulterated the fire.

 

 

D.N.E. is a multi-instrumental musician, artist, poet and writer whose work throughout all modes of expression encircles vivifying consciousness and the eternal transfiguration with intent to stimulate deeper awareness and strength as a path of self realization. Though having lived abroad for several years as a fresh adult, she was born, raised and long time resides in Edmonton.

 

The featured exhibit runs November 1 – 30, 2023 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.⁠

 

Artist Reception: November 8  at 5:30PM.⁠

 

Artist: Sarah C Louise

 

Artist Statement:

Characters are the greatest teachers. Through their mistakes and perspectives we are able to journey through unlived experiences. This show, Affinity for Fiction, is a tribute to characters instrumental in the experience of the artist. The show highlights some especially iconic characters, some of which Sarah fell in love with in this very theatre!

 

Sarah C Louise is an Edmonton-born creative. An English Teacher by profession, Sarah has an enduring fondness for characters. She began painting because her grandparents were gifted oil painters. Any sort of creation by Sarah is, in some way, centered around story, whether it is a script for a Fringe show, musical compositions, or a series of portraits. Her eminent muses are her beautiful creatures: Wicket, Hubble (stunning kitties, both), and her puppy Poe.

 

The featured exhibit runs October 1 – 31, 2023 in Metro Gallery in the Garneau Theatre lobby.⁠

 

Artist Reception: October 5  at 5:30PM.⁠

 

Artist: Nicole Galellis

 

Artist Statement:

 

These recent paintings were created over the summer during a period of wildfires that have touched lives locally and globally. Using fire and smoke as symbols, my goal was to explore themes of crisis and transformation. I incorporated other imagery from nature, offering hope for renewal and resilience. I aim for this art to remind myself and others that renewal can come from disruption and change. Thank you to the Metro Cinema for hosting this exhibit and for creating inclusive programming where diverse perspectives and educational experiences can be shared.

 

 

Nicole Galellis is an artist and educator living in Edmonton. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and has participated in artist residencies in Banff, Grand Prairie and Taipei, Taiwan. Nicole’s paintings are featured in private and public collections including the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Lois Hole Hospital and Borden Park Pavilion, Edmonton. Nicole divides her time between her studio and teaching practices, and has taught in a variety of settings: the Art Gallery of Alberta, Harcourt House Artist Run Centre, the U of A’s Faculty of Extension, the Nina Haggerty Centre for the Art. Since completing a degree in Secondary Education, Nicole has taught high school with Edmonton Public Schools.