A blend of Red Deer’s favourite places and a celebration of of how the city’s various cultures create a strong community will be front and centre when the G.H. Dae Centre renvoations are completed.
Three art pieces valued at nearly $175,000 have been selected to add colour to the newly renovated centre.
City council approved a jury’s selection of art that will go inside the centre, set to re-open on Aug.1.
The costliest piece, at $107,000, will be installed along a long wall on the west side of the new main entrance to the G.H. Dawe on the city’s north side.
Artists Brian McArthur and Dawn Detarando of Red Deer County will create Kaleidoscope Menagerie, a mosiac mural of Red Deer architectural icons, park spaces and those who inhabit them.
Red Deer artist Trenton Leach will create two large hollow steel silhouettes of a fish bowl that will be placed parallel to each other. The $33,400 project called Fish Bowl will be placed directly underneath a skylight to capitalize on the light reflection of the marbles.
It will be found at the pedestrian mall area, or the intersection of three main pedestrian traffic corridors outside the library’s front entrance.
Andy Davies of Lethbridge, formerly of Innisfail, will create We All Fit Together to the tune of $33,400. The location is a curved cement block wall, with large windows spaced alongside it, surrounding the north and west sides of the pool and workout area.
He will unify the 10 windows and the wall through a series of puzzle pieces and other shapes placed in an overall wave pattern.
The cost of the projects have fallen into the city’s current Public Art policy.
In January, city council approved a draft resolution to change the city’s Public Art Policy so that one per cent of capital construction costs exceeding $250,000 would go towards public art — not 1.2 per cent as it stands now.