The world of art is in a constant state of flux.
It’s not that painting and sculpture are dead art forms, or anything, it’s just that many of today’s artists work in other, more modern, mediums, and the Campbell River Art Gallery has now taken a big step towards being able to showcase that type of work.
Thanks to a recent grant from the BC Arts Council, the Art Gallery will soon be adding multimedia – especially video – to their arsenal for the public to enjoy.
The $11,750 grant is, according to Kris Anderson, Executive Director of the gallery, a “Special Project Grant for Capital Assets, which means we can actually purchase equipment with it. Usually when you get funding, it’s for a specific project or for staffing, so it’s always a treat when you get funding to be able to by equipment.”
The equipment being purchased is a video projector, monitors and a camera – for both still images and video production.
“Aside from sculpture and paintings, we’re now also going to be able to do more new media and video installation, and other contemporary art projects,” Anderson said.
According to gallery Curator Julie Prudhomme, most of the exhibits for 2015 were already booked before the announcement of the grant earlier this week, so the full implementation of the new equipment – exhibitions using video or other “new media” as the focus of the installations – are likely to begin in 2016, but they will be starting to use the new equipment in various “extraneous projects alongside other exhibitions” as soon as it’s received.
For example, during the annual Members’ Exhibition in April 2015, “View From the Easel,” the working title of a project Prudhomme is working on, will show photographs taken by the various artists involved, and add another dimension to the exhibition by giving the public another angle into the world of the artists.
“Having it just means we can do all kinds of other things we couldn’t do before. We could have film screenings in the gallery, for example. It just adds to the programming, and enables us to have more current and up-to-date offerings,” said Prudhomme.
Upcoming exhibitions and other offerings at the gallery, such as classes or events, as well as when the first multimedia aspects will be implemented, can be found at www.crartgallery.ca