By Katie Ryan
The world of art was illuminated for local students last week. Grade 6 students from St. Mary’s Elementary School visited the Barr Colony Heritage Cultural Centre (BCHCC) to discuss a new exhibit, Illuminated Spaces.
“It’s a series of photographs of old, abandoned buildings, focussing mostly on doors, windows and the light that is coming through them. She uses a lot of metaphors in her pieces, it’s mixed media, so there is photography that is altered,” said BCHCC cultural programmer, RaeLynn Lake, of Saskatchewan artist Carri J. McKinnon’s work.
Lake said McKinnon’s work tends to captivate the viewer with the silvery light of the pieces drawing the viewer into spaces the artist has either discovered or created.
“A lot of the kids are really taken by it and it contains a subject matter that is really quite foreign to a lot of these kids because it’s totally removed. These are generations that are passed, these are houses that have been abandoned,” she said, referring to the forgotten places and buildings in McKinnon’s pieces.
“The exhibit is really interesting because it focusses on the fact that these homes were once brimming with life, family and fun, and they seem to have taken on energies from people who have lived there. It’s somewhat of a metaphor for life, in general, the process that we go through.”
The emotional pull and visual poetry of these forgotten places inspired McKinnon’s high contrast imagery.
“When bright sunlight steals into an abandoned structure, that ‘dark corner’ is illuminated, the transformation fascinates me,” said McKinnon in a statement. Students were also fascinated and shared their take on the exhibit during a discussion period.
“The kids come in and view it, we go through an analysis process where we go through the four steps of viewing artwork, then put together a final synopsis of what the artwork is,” said Lake, who followed up the analysis with a drawing activity.
“The lesson is not about perspective or rendering, it’s about actually being able to take that idea and bring it out in a visual aspect.”
Photo Caption: Grade 6 student, Chris Maier tries his had at drawing with charcoal at the BCHCC. - Katie Ryan Photo