A <Site> to see, soon.
Local gallery offers brilliant farewell retrospective.
Kristen Pauch-Nolin


Since 1995, <Site> Gallery has provided some of Winnipeg’s most accomplished and recognizable contemporary artists with a commercial venue in which to exhibit and promote their pieces. It’s also given art audiences an opportunity to purchase local work.

Ten, currently on display in the gallery’s main salon, marks the venue’s 10th anniversary by showcasing selections of artwork from the gallery’s impressive past and present membership.

The exhibition includes works by recognized artists — such as Diana Thorneycroft, Aganetha Dyck, Steve Gouthro, E.J Howorth and Tony Tascona — alongside lesser-known talents such as Susan Turner, Tanis Dick and Doug Smith. Skilfully presented, the thematically, stylistically and materially diverse exhibition offers a comprehensive sampling of the contemporary art being created in Winnipeg.

Digitally imaged works, such as E.J Howorth’s Afternoon Swimmer and Susan Turner’s Sending to Me, exemplify the impact of technology on artistic practice.

Howorth’s image offers a beautifully layered colour photograph flanked by panels of hand-drawn texture, while Turner’s piece exploits the possibilities of computer imaging by presenting digitally manipulated human forms. In both cases, the use of a computer to alter and/or produce images results in striking artwork with vividly sharp edges and dramatically saturated colours.

Smaller, more intimate pieces, such as Tascona’s acrylic-on-paper Daybreak 2001 and Steve Gouthro’s watercolour-and-gouache Flex 1,2,3,4, demonstrate the dramatic esthetic possibilities of creating contemporary images using traditional media. Each artist’s expert handling of their materials produces compelling and highly accomplished renderings.

Gouthro’s group of four portraits featuring a male bodybuilder circumvents the historic traditions of formal portrait painting by including a more current subject. Similarly, Tascona’s abstract piece adopts elements of the modernist tradition, then challenges it with a distinctly contemporary esthetic.

Contributions by both Dyck and Thorneycroft are complex and multi-layered works offered by two of Winnipeg’s most accomplished artists.

Dyck’s The Swarm and the Crochet is a fabulous example of the artist’s signature apiary work. The piece, created by placing an everyday item into an active beehive, includes hand-drawn or stitched elements on top of the resulting wax surface.

Thorneycroft’s mixed-media Rabbit (shot), a graphite drawing of Bugs Bunny with a photo border, demonstrates the artist’s remarkable abilities as both a technical drawer and a conceptual thinker.

In addition to two-dimensional pieces, Ten offers an impressive collection of sculpture in clay, metal and mixed media. Ceramic works by Alan Locovetsky, Grace Nickel, Tanis Dick and Doug Smith showcase the talent of Manitoba artists working with clay. Locovetsky’s vessels, reveal the magnificent possibilities of combining strong forms with subtle texture and colour, while Doug Smith’s mountain-form Golgotha demonstrates clay’s architectural/sculptural potential.
Despite the member support suggested by Ten, the exhibition also serves as a final farewell.

After the recent loss of several significant member artists to cancer — including Shelley Rusen, Caroline Dukes and Winston Leathers — and a decline in sales, the gallery will close its doors at the end of December, 2005.