by Chelsea Thornton (Staff Writer)
Email: cascade.arts[at]ufv.ca
The exhibitions at The Reach gallery in Abbotsford right now are all focused on the past, touching on art through a distinctly historical lens.
The largest current exhibit is Vistas: Artists on the Canadian Pacific Railway, by guest curator Roger Boulet. The exhibit includes over 90 visual art works and historical photographs from the Glenbow Museum collection, as well as from public and private collections. It will run until January 9th. The exhibit focuses on the work of artists who travelled through the west on the Canadian Pacific Railway, either for free or for heavy discounts, in return for their glorious representations of the Canadian West. This partnership allowed the artists cheap access to inspiration and gave the CPR free publicity; as the work of the artists was circulated, the locations that their paintings depicted gained in fame and desirability. Some of the paintings displayed in the gallery were even commissioned by the CPR for display in their hotels and dining halls.
The Reach brochure describes the exhibit as “a rare opportunity to explore how aesthetics and history interact.” With or without the historical background, the sheer visual force of some of the landscape paintings is captivating in itself. The exhibit is full of mountains, rivers and glaciers, with the occasional prairie or forest scene thrown in. One piece, “Campfire at Night,” by Albert Bierstadt, stands out as unique amongst the rest: it is a night time scene. The painter managed to capture the struggle of seeing at night, and the details of the painting are only revealed when you stare and squint at it for a while.
The other exhibit in the main gallery at The Reach also looks at British Columbian railway history but with a very different approach. Our Communities: Our Stories features railway artefacts as well as railway paintings by Max Jacquiard. The ongoing exhibit centers on a digital floor mat, which depicts the geographic history of the Abbotsford region from the last ice age to the present. This blending of old – the region’s history – and new – the digital format – is echoed in Jacquiard’s paintings. Although he is painting today, he has chosen the world of the past for his subject matter, a world of steam engines, early model cars and the birth and beginnings of the Fraser Valley’s communities. His paintings are extremely detailed and almost photographic in their realism. In one painting, he is able to make the moon appear to glow through his shading of it and the reflection of its light on the neighbouring clouds.
Two smaller exhibits also focus on the past. Showtime: 40 Years on Stage celebrates the past 40 years of theatre in the Fraser Valley, with production posters and pictures, as well as costumes and props. Vintage Toys by Miles Van Yperen collects actual vintage toys as well as photographic compositions from sci-fi magazines.
A temporary exhibit, which closed November 15th, showed in honour of Remembrance Day. The exhibit featured the work of local artists who are in grades 6-12 at local schools. The watercolours, pastels, and 3D pieces were all meant to communicate what Remembrance Day meant to each individual student.
