We pull over on a grid road to stretch our legs and pick a pretty prairie bouquet.
Trains rumble past through the golden fields.
Upon our arrival, we converse quietly over tea or coffee at the kitchen table.
Pauses are long but the silence is peacefully welcomed.
Stories and memories are always shared over a big meal around the table.
Produce, pickles and preserves are anticipated.
Comfort.
Familiarity.
Nostalgia.
Home.
Artist Biography
Amber Antymniuk was born and raised on an acreage outside Tisdale, Saskatchewan.
Amber holds a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Regina, where she specialized in Arts Education, with a major in visual arts and a minor in English. She holds a Fine Arts degree from the same university.
She makes her home in Saskatoon, where she taught Kindergarten to Grade 8 Arts Education in the Public School Division for five years before taking parental leave — “a perfect opportunity,” she says, “to utilize some of my skills that had been put on the shelf over the years.” Amber spends her days raising two boys, writing, painting and distributing her book titled, H is for Home: A Saskatchewan Alphabet.
Amber draws inspiration from her rural upbringing and from Mother Nature.
To view more of Amber’s work or to inquire about commissions, please follow @amberantymniuk on Instagram or visit Blow Creative Arts
Abby Holtslander is a painter, potter, and printmaker based in Saskatoon. Abby has created art her whole life but has only recently endeavored to share her paintings with the Saskatoon community. Abby has a particular love for representing the feminine form in various configurations and styles. This show features two of Abby’s contrasting styles of painting figures.
The first body of pieces represents Abby’s perception of beauty in the female form. It features calm and self-confident women with distorted body proportions and skin of all colours and shades. The pieces evoke a joyful yet calming energy through the use of vibrant, yet natural tones. Each piece is meant to inspire viewers with one word, such as “listen” or “grow” to motivate self-reflection and the acceptance of themselves and others.
In the second body of pieces, Abby combines her love for painting texture and movement with her desire to portray tranquility and intensity at once. In contrast to Abby’s other body of pieces, where the pronounced shapes and outlines tell the story of faceless women, these pieces feature striking faces that stare back at the viewer with relaxed strength. It is Abby’s hope that through her expression, she creates images that portray the power and peace she sees in femininity.
In addition to being an artist, Abby is also currently in her final year of law school at the University of Saskatchewan.
Local artist DANIELLE FULAWKA has been painting and selling her acrylic pieces for nearly a decade. Most people can’t imagine the Canadian prairies looking anything like these ethereal floral paintings but all of these pieces are based off of real flower farms in Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba.
As a cut flower grower herself she feels a sense comradely with growers in Canada as she seeks to immortalize all of their hard work, it is such an honour and privilege to share their beauty permanently with both flower and lovers outside of their reach.
In her pieces her primary goal is to push to boundaries of depths by using light and shadows to create a “bokeh” effect similar to that in photography. She is always learning and striving to become a better painter as she truly believes that “beauty will save the world.”
@daniellefulawka
Photography by Katee Pederson
ROBYNN OLSON is a Saskatoon based artist and has been creating and selling works of art for seven years. Six of those years she focused on acrylic landscapes and in the last couple months she has switched over to oil landscapes. The vibrancy and slow drying time drewRobynnto explore in oil paints and once shestartedshe could not turn back! Using large brush strokes and focusing on simple shapes, a recognizable scene comes to life. Using the full spectrum of the colour wheel is also important when she explores a landscape.
“Places I want to go and places I have been: that is what I want displayed in my home and I hope others want the same! I see beauty in the world and desire to paint it – not in the reality we see it, but in a more vibrant, hyperreal, joyful way.”
Robynn’shope is recreate your memories and dreams using paint on canvas. @robynn.olson
The work in this exhibition was produced last winter where my primary focus was on my photogenic cats Dot and Lily. I had many images of them lounging glamorously in their favourite spots throughout the house. The fact that they are mortal enemies is evidenced only by the absence of pictures of them interacting happily together.
I have chosen to intersperse still life and landscape paintings as well. Personally, I like variety. I think it is interesting to see how the brush strokes, colour choices, mood and energy levels interweave the varied subject matter in a way that I hope is pleasing to the viewer.
Robynn’s show was going to happen in May, 2020 at Calories.
Since the restaurant will remain closed through the month of May due to Covid-19 health crisis, Robynn’s art will remain at her home. Follow Robynn on Instagram @robynn.olson and see her virtual reception at her home on Friday, May 1st. You can view many of the Road Trip Collection 2020 pieces on Robynn’s website We invite you to take the Road Trip along with Robynn from her home and dream of the time we can all hit the road again. Photo by Katee Pederson
‘Cultural Appreciation’, tells 14 stories of strength and beauty through the contemporary Indigenous fashion designs of collaborator, Lauren Good Day, set on the harsh, yet mesmerizing prairie landscapes of Treaty 6 Territory. Each painting is a visual and impressionistic form of storytelling – sharing the perspectives of others through bold, colourful and organic brush and knife strokes. Leaving the details up to you, the ‘receiver’.
I invite you to immerse yourself. Imagine the stories. Be filled with curiosity and wonder. Be connected to the land. Feel the strength and beauty. And appreciate the culture.
Rachelle Brockman is an experienced and award-winning post-secondary educator, a passionate artist, volunteer, mother, partner and an enthusiastic entrepreneur. In addition to being a Professional Artist, she the Principal of Eureka Experience (www.eurekaexperience.ca) – guiding ‘Passionate, Productive People’ and the Lead Facilitator of The Betty-Ann Heggie Womentorship Program.
Rachelle, of Métis and Irish descent, learned to appreciate art and nature from her mother and grandmother. Her wild ideas and curiosity are thanks to her adventurous father and the freedom she had growing up north of Prince Albert. And her deep desire to understand and connect with people and perspectives is a result of her experience working with diverse people.
Rachelle is the illustrator of two children’s books, published by Nelson Publishing, the former owner and lead Art Instructor at Creative Minds Studio. Her paintings can currently be enjoyed in person at D’Lish Café, UNA Pizza & Wine and Calories Restaurant.
@rbrockmanart
rachellebrockman.com
Collaborating Fashion Designer. Lauren Good Day “Good Day Woman” is a Multi-award winning Arikara, Hidatsa, Blackfeet and Plains Cree artist. She has shown her artwork at the world’s most prestigious Native American juried art shows. She has been awarded in a diverse range of artwork and was presented with the prestigious Best of Tribal Arts award.
Being a sought after artist and designer her work is in numerous public and private collections internationally. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Indigenous Studies from the Institute of American Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, NM. Lauren lives on the rolling hills of North Dakota, her traditional homelands. Her role as a mother and woman of her tribe guide her to continue on the arts of her people for the generations to come. For more about Lauren, visit laurengoodday.com or @laurengoodday.
A note about Cultural Appreciation from designer, Lauren Good Day:
“Let’s talk CULTURAL APPRECIATION vs cultural appropriation. Often, I get asked if it’s okay for Non-Natives to wear or collect my work. I always say yes, it’s absolutely appreciated to support authentic Native art & design direct from enrolled tribal artists. So many major companies appropriate Native imagery & iconography with zero Indigenous partnership and it doesn’t benefit actual Native people or communities. Wearing Native American Art you’ve purchased from the artist directly is CULTURAL APPRECIATION and is okay!” (Lauren Good Day, Jan. 2020)
Eye on U is a collection of street photographs of storefronts across the world,
taken using vintage cameras. The negatives and prints were hand developed.
Everything is fashion and everything is art.
How we choose to decorate our bodies,
our private spaces,
our public spaces,
our architecture,
our gardens and the food we eat are
all part of our own personal artistic expression.
All these forms of expression have become fashion statements and speak volumes to our way of life
and the way we choose to exist.
Biography
Trint Thomas is a Fine art photographer specializing in 35mm black and white photography. Trint was born and raised in Saskatoon Saskatchewan but currently lives in North Vancouver British-Columbia. He uses a variety of cameras from vintage to digital. He does his own developing and darkroom work to achieve the images he prints himself.
Trint works almost exclusively with his Leica M3 and M8, although is known to use vintage 35mm cameras from the late 1900’s, when the occasion calls for it. The work he creates is visually captivating; the images both thought provoking and moving, often cause for self-reflection.
Trint’s work leaves a lasting impression on the viewer. Trint Thomas has been exhibiting his work for over a decade including both group and solo exhibitions. His work has begun to gain international attention and recently was exhibited in the John Michael Kohler gallery in the United States.
This exhibition explores the form, beauty, strength, spirit and resilience of the domestic animals that have been central to our existence for thousands of years. These creatures have not only supplied us with food, shelter, clothing, tools and transportation but have also acted as beasts of burden for centuries and require little from us in return. These portraits are inspired by the domestic animals I have recently met through friends and family and during our travels afar.
They are close-up, immersive and often eye-to-eye in order to connect with the animal’s inner core and sometimes they contain a humorous edge in order to capture the creature’s personality. Using encaustic, oil and assorted drawing materials, I pay homage to these animalsof the horn and hoof variety in order to acknowledge their contributions to our world.
KATHY BRADSHAW is a Saskatoon-based artist who works with a range of subject matters in oil and encaustic, an ancient medium treasured for its luminosity, layering capabilities and mysterious nature. Since receiving her B.F.A. with great distinction from the U. of S. in 2005, Bradshaw has taken an array of classes from local and international artists, participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions across Canada and won several awards for her landscape work and animal portraiture. She was also recently named a “Saskatchewan Artist to Watch in 2019”. Currently represented by galleries in Regina, Waskesiu, Calgary, Canmore and St. John, N.B., her paintings are part of collections across Canada and around the world.
These new works come from my roots. In my last years as an art student I painted abstractly, breaking down representational imagery to simple shapes, lines and colour. To begin I create chaos with my materials, draw what I am inspired by and then start to eliminate, keeping the details or stories that I are most intriguing and work as a whole. As always, I am inspired by the landscape, my flower garden and Saskatoon’s best kept secret Boffin Gardens. I am pleased to be working abstractly again, it makes me feel at peace, and like this is what I am meant to be doing. I am excited to see what will come next.
Jesse Friesen grew up in the small town of Shell Lake and then moved to Saskatoon. After deciding the city life wasn’t for him, he moved to the town of Hepburn where he, his wife and two children now call home. He has always loved wood. The variation in colors and grain makes every piece different and unique. Lately he has been trying to save local pieces of wood by creating something out of them instead of them being turned into firewood. This will be the last year that he will be creating cutting and serving boards. In the new year his focus will be shifting to high quality wood turning and creating beautiful home décor pieces.