By Glen Ess (The Cascade) – Email
The bright lights, the circling crowd, Aaron Levy cajoling them to circle faster — you’ll see this at any Art Battle here in Abbotsford. The latest in this long running, cross-Canada event was no different. Art Battle 398 was held at The Reach Gallery and Museum on Friday the 13th, and featured a large crowd stalking some local artists as they competed with one another for a place in the regional finals to be held late next month.
As the world’s largest organized painting competition, the stakes are high at Art Battle, and with all the many distractions of an audience, it was a testament to the intense focus of the artists that they barely broke a sweat over the course of three 20-minute battles. While many of the artists had competed at other iterations of Art Battle held here in the Valley, there were some fresh faces stepping into the fray for the first time. These newer artists, such as the wildcard pick, Chelaine Neufeldt, certainly held their own against the more Art Battle-hardened group of artists, which included eventual winner Cindy Dohms, fellow finalist Rose Ross, and Angela Tucker.
Over the course of the first two battles, the members of the crowd were instructed to rotate around the artists, who were arrayed in a circle in the centre of the gallery. Once the timer had come to halt, audience members were given the opportunity to vote on which of the four they believed to have created the most interesting pieces. The top two from each battle were then set against one another in the evening’s third and final battle. As Chen, Ross, Dohms, and Shan Thiesen faced off in their third bout of the evening, every second counted, and the audience reached a fever pitch by the time the clock ran out.
As the final votes were tallied (and bidding closed on the silent auction where all of the evening’s creations had been up for sale), both artists and audience members alike enjoyed the breather. It may sound somewhat strange, but the sustained concentration required by the artists was taxing, on both them and the audience.
As the evening drew to a close, Cindy Dohms’ excellent performance was rewarded as she booked her spot in the regional finals to be held June 25, where she’ll compete against other artists for the opportunity to go to the National Championships to be held in Toronto in July.
