As wildfire season begins to wane, a Red Deer artist is holding a pop-up exhibit about the ever present dangers of combustion — both metaphoric and actual.
Getting Along — a solo painting exhibit by local artist Jeff Powers is on for one night, on Sept. 3, at the Artribute Arts School in the Old Courthouse on Ross Street.
The pop-up display contains a pun in the title: The name of the show is printed over Powers’ image of a house in flames. It conjures the idiom “getting along like a house on fire,” which is used to describe a very successful friendship — presumably one that produces warm feelings all around.
“Thinking about the odd phrase …had me looking at the current state of our province, society, and world, a little differently,” said Powers.
“It seems that we are quick to burn down the institutions around us, for good or ill. Whether it be the destruction of home life, the upheaval of our medical system, the state of law enforcement, or the treatment of the environment. Each painting pulls from current events and is depicted in a …painterly style in order to further blur that line between beauty and chaos. The pieces attempt to draw you in and then make you stop and think.”
Other paintings in Powers’ exhibit will feature car fires, and of course, a forest fire.
Powers previously exhibited paintings in 2018 that highlight a connection between birds and dinosaurs at the Marjorie Wood Gallery in the Kerry Wood Nature Centre.
Since taking visual arts at Red Deer College and receiving a fine arts degree from Lethbridge University, Powers has illustrated comics and children’s books.
His pop-up gallery show will be held from 5 to 8 p.m.
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
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