A mother-son art project is on vibrant display at the Harris-Warke Gallery in Red Deer.
Mother, Brandi Hofer, is a visual artist from Lloydminster who trained at Red Deer College and then Nova Scotia’s NSCAD University.
Her son, Gus Classen, is natural artist. He was two years old when he added his expressive punctuation marks to the mixed-media portraits in this striking exhibit.
Now an exuberant three-year-old, Gus was eagerly anticipating his first art show opening on Saturday afternoon. “He was saying art show! Suckers! Candy!” said Hofer, who made sure to include some of these treats among the more grown-up refreshments at the gallery.
“I told him, ‘Yes, buddy it’s your art show!’ He was so excited…”
Their collaboration began a few months after Hofer gave birth to Gus’s little brother, who’s now nine months old.
She brought her eldest into her home art studio while the baby napped, and encouraged his interest in mark-making with chalk and oil pastels and poster paint.
Although Hofer had been thinking of starting an art project on a more serious theme, such as feminism, “I thought, that’s not really me right now.” Instead, she was appreciating the little moments that come with motherhood, while also trying to find time to resume her professional art career.
Hofer said she had become acutely aware of mortality and how quickly life goes by with the the “devastating” loss of her own mother from cancer in 2014.
Spending time with Gus, while working on art, fit her state of mind, as well as her schedule.
In studio, Gus made a lot of interesting abstract marking — not only on paper and board, “but on the walls, floor, cupboards…”
Hofer decided to paint loose oil portraits on this abstract background of other parents, including her husband Carly Classen, her yoga instructor and other friends and relatives.
Both mother and son added squiggles, triangles and circles on top of the portraits — as well as some of Gus’s suggested images. “He said ‘Big T-Rex!” — which ended up on a portrait of his father, along with a ghost and octopus.
“We’d been watching a lot of Sponge Bob Square Pants,” Hofer explained.
The exhibit is a light-hearted, fulfilling project, she added. “I hope viewers can relate to it and feel the fun, and the great time we had together… I also hope that they enjoy the child-like quality of the paintings.”
Hofer, an RDC artist-in-residence in 2011, has also exhibited in Saskatoon and Lloydminster, and paints commission portraits for clients from all over the world.
Gus, an Art Series by Mother and Son, is on until Dec. 1.
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
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