Paintings and ceramics that are artfully contorted and twisted are part of Red Deer’s First Friday gallery openings for July.
This month’s opening receptions were postponed to this Friday because of last week’s July 1 holiday, but the diverse array of artworks around the city will make it worth the wait.
The Jumpers, a series of paintings and drawings by Red Deer artist Erin Boake, will open at the Harris-Warke Gallery in Sunworks at 4924 Ross St. The graduate of Red Deer College visual arts program and the Alberta College of Art and Design has painted an evolving series of figures contorting in space. Boake’s expressive exhibit, studying movement in the absence of context, will have an opening reception from 6 to 8 p.m.
Twisted: Works by Issy Covey, will open from 6:30 to 8:30 at the Kiwanis Gallery of the Red Deer Public Library. The Red Deer Advocate advertising artist, who completed art school in her native Scotland, has created organic artworks feature digitally created photographs of rocks and gnarled roots, as well as twisted ceramic shapes in traditional and raku pottery.
Take Flight, a group art exhibit on the subject of birds, will be showing at The Hub at 4936 Ross St. The opening reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. A concert by Lacombe folk/blues singer-songwriter Justine Vandergrift will follow. Half of the $10 concert ticket price will go toward the Push to Open Nature Society, which aims to increase access to the outdoors for the disabled.
Art by Jodi Benson will be featured at Cafe Pichilingue, with an opening reception Friday evening.
We’re Still Here, an exhibit of artworks by Red Deer artists Jessie Pettit and Paul Boultbee, will be showing at G. Michael Hair at 4702 Ross St. The opening reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m.
More works by Boultbee as well as his wife, Glynis Wilson Boultbee, will be exhibited at the Velvet Olive (accessed from the alley behind Sunworks). The reception will run from 7 to 9 p.m.
Gallery IS at 5123-48th St. is displaying a group show called the Weekend Art Market. First Friday hours are from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Another group show is on at Art From the Streets, at 4935- 51st. St. The opening reception is from 6 to 8 p.m.
Several different exhibits are on at the Red Deer Museum and Art Gallery, which offers free admission on First Friday as well as extended hours, from 5 to 8:30 p.m. The Alberta Wide Art Show features paintings and drawings from the Alberta Community Art Clubs Association; From Our Collection showcases objects and artifacts from Central Alberta’s history; and Farming Out Our Future explores changes to rural life from 1950 to the present.