In the
main gallery till January 20 is Robert Derbouka’s show EX-centric. He will be
talking about his work on January 17 at 7:30pm at the gallery, and I strongly
encourage you to go. Also showing is Ione Thorkelsson’s show entitled
Narratives.
Often a gallery can take on the look of a museum and then some.
Thorkelsson’s work would be more appropriate in a museum if the fossilized
creatures in the gallery were real. The unsettling glass castings resonate with
otherworldliness akin to a discovery of an alien species or as dramatic
evidence that new age fantasies were not fantasy after all: that this is proof
of the existence of near human creatures who could fly in times before recorded
history, before the fall of some Eden-like state. Myth, metaphor,
pseudoscience, and craft intermingle to make for a wonderful exhibit where the
mind races to make sense of the translucent hybrid skeletal structures that are
poetic inferences to imaginative allegories of humans in some superior state or
as decaying remnants of some failed species.
Years ago, with encouragement
from Glenn Allison (the TBAG’s curator) when he worked at the Gallery of
Southwestern Manitoba, Ione began working with cast glass. Ione ran her own
glassblowing studio for twenty years. She has had a few major solo shows over
the years.
Robert Derbouka’s takes naïve art to the extreme. Eccentric,
esoteric, ridiculous and dazzling, the dedication or addiction to sculpt and
paint works of such depth of meaning and brilliant humour can only come from a
passionate soul who loves life and all of our human foibles. The works never
seem to complete a single thought; rather, they catapult ideas back and forth
across the room creating a playground-like environment where the work screams
as from one eccentric expressive genius.
Bruce Hyer (local MP) pulled me away
from another function to praise the work and point out his favourite pieces. He
restated one of my first thoughts when I saw the work through the galleries
glass doors; that Derbouka’s work needed to be somewhere other than a gallery.
The sculpted works had the appearance of being warehoused before their shipment
to take prominent and permanent residence in local institutions. The totem pole
celebrating music is an inspiring work for anyone to see, and could easily
become a favourite work of art for the city if purchased for the Community
Auditorium.
I couldn’t decide on a favourite piece to write about as I found
that describing one piece wouldn’t work as an example of the whole. There is so
much intelligent exploratory and imaginative strength that the works prohibit
me from finding an underlying theme. There are dozens of themes working here,
and the more you look the more you will find. In Derbouka’s case, this is a
wonderful thing.
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