The Esplanade Art Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of two new exhibitions, School Art 2012 and Tracy Bultje: Remnant, on display until June 10.

School Art 2012

School Art 2012 is here! The latest crop of art work from over 40 Medicine Hat and area schools is a rich and vibrant display of students’ talent and effort, from Kindergarten to Grade 12. It’s also a testament to the skill and dedication of teachers of art throughout the region. Come and enjoy the exuberance and artistic exploration in over 700 works in an astounding array of media.

Joanne Ellis, School Art organizer at the Esplanade Art Gallery, comments, “The annual School Art exhibition is only possible with the continued support of all the sponsors, presenters and jurors, and especially the students, teachers, and school administrators who nurture visual arts in our schools.”

The School Art 2012 reception takes place on Sunday May 6 at 1pm in the Gallery Foyer, followed at 1.30pm by the Awards Ceremony in the main Theatre Hall. Admission is free. Refreshments are a courtesy of Medicine Hat Catholic Separate Regional Division #20. Presentation materials are a courtesy of Medicine Hat School District #76.

Admission to the galleries is free during School Art 2012 thanks to Cenovus Energy.

Tracy Bultje Remnant

Tracy Bultje’s recent paintings are large and dramatic, evoking the colourful and ground-breaking early 20th century Canadian Group of Seven. But where the Group of Seven celebrated the Canadian ‘wilderness’ of their time, Tracy Bultje brings to vivid life the remnants of that landscape – the slivers of trees along the river near her home, treed fencerows, property lines and windbreaks. These are slender curtains of landscape with no depth which Tracy Bultje has rendered rich, complex and strikingly intense, defying their flatness with intricate patterning.

As writer and painter Jordan Broadworth comments: “Bultje’s paintings argue that in spite of its fragile state, the natural world is still capable of offering communion with something greater than ourselves. And landscape painting can still offer what Emily Carr once described as “a glimpse of God interrupted by the soul.”

Tracy Bultje was born and resides in Chatham, Ontario where she continues to work in her home studio as a contemporary landscape painter. She has exhibited her work in solo and group shows in Ontario and is currently an artist in residence at ARTspace, Chatham, Ontario.