Into My Eye | Out of My Mind

Art in the time of Covid 19 – what does it mean to be an artist or a consumer of art during this moment in time? The pandemics of previous generations are ghostly communal memories that have no imprint on our psyche. So we are relearning to cope one day at a time.

Art can seem irrelevant when your loved ones are in a nursing home or working in a hospital. We wait and watch – that is the only thing left to us when we are requested and then forced to stay home (I never want to hear those words again).

But is art irrelevant? Making art has been a life-line for those of us who actively pursue our craft, spider lines reaching out to our artist friends and colleagues, instructors and mentors. Bringing the relief of common ground and shared passions, squeezing out the fear.

To the receivers of art, the collectors, the lookers, the admirers who gaze at a creative person’s inner being, a piece of art can take the fear and anxiety of this time and put it out of mind, at least for a little while, long enough to change the chemistry of thought back to hopeful. Out of the loops of pandemic thinking, around and around in worry.

We are slightly insane right now. We are stopped in our tracks. This show is about movement – of what goes into our minds, the news, the dog-walkers outside our windows, the sun as it moves along the living room floor. It is about moving forward, out of our crowded minds and back into the world, to work again, to our friend’s house, to the future. We will get moving again as the virus moves into the past with the other pandemics that have changed, and not changed, the world.

A self-taught Winnipeg artist, Ruth Kamenev uses her artwork to study the vibrant world around her. Loving the look and feel of watercolours, she uses them to create representational depictions of vibrant, colourful flowers, birds and landscapes. Expanding her interests to explore a wide variety of art media has been the focus of her practice for the last few years, so that acrylics, alcohol inks, watercolour batik and mixed media mono-printing are part of her repertoire. She is a member of the Manitoba Society of Artists, twice winning the Lynn Sissons Memorial Watercolour award at the annual juried show and competition held by the MSA. She serves on the MSA jury committee, considering new memberships and applications for shows at the Piano Nobile Gallery. Ruth teaches watercolour painting at the Forum Art Centre and was represented by Wayne Arthur Gallery.

Roger Sutherland was born in the French speaking city of St. Boniface in 1961. He started painting wildlife and prairie landscapes. He experimented with painting on plywood, Masonite, paper and canvas using various methods of painting. Over time my painting style evolved into abstract painting that allows me to enjoy the freedom to express concepts and emotion. During the 1980s he met several prairie artists that influenced and encouraged him (Roger Lafreniere, Hubert Theroux, Guy St. Godard, Peter Dumans, and Geno Mazze. Currently he is self-employed as a carpenter, renovator, and abstract artist living in Winnipeg, MB

Public Hours, April 28 to May 24:

Tuesday to Saturday*, 11 am to 5 pm,

*open extended hours, First Friday: May 6, 11 am to 8 pm

Meet the Artist Days:

Thursdays, 11 am to 5 pm: Meet Ruth Kamenev

Saturdays, 11 am to 5 pm: Meet Roger Sutherland