Group of irrelevance?

by Holly Gordon

“I don’t know if I’m going to be the kicking boy or the straw dog or something like that, but — it’s going to be a lot of fun,” says art historian Tom Smart.

Pimâskweyâw's politics

by Maria Feldman

“I often say my mere existence is a political statement,” says Joi T. Arcand on the opening night of Pimâskweyâw, a visual arts exhibition at this year’s bustling Prairie Scene festival.

Quizzically, no trace of overt politicking can be found in Arcand’s rustic work adorning the walls of Gallery 101.

One of a herd

by Holly Gordon

Saskatoon-based artist Adrian Stimson doesn’t worry about negative reactions people may have to his art; the subversive nature of his installation and performance art, including his campy trickster Buffalo Boy, elicits both roundhouse applause and frowns. It’s the non-reaction that brings apprehension.

Party buzz

by Holly Gordon

The Prairie Scene’s Swarm night is an art-filled evening that’s entirely free. The opening party starts at the National Arts Centre at 9 p.m., and the after-party is hosted by (who else?) SAW Gallery from 11 p.m. onward. But before that, the hours between 6 and 9 p.m. give you the chance to visit 10 galleries, all for free. Getting to each space by foot is physically impossible in three hours’ time, but fear not — Swarm buses run on a constant gallery-to-gallery loop, about 10 minutes apart. Buses start and end at the NAC, but you can board from any gallery. We’ve contacted all the galleries to see what they have in store.

Doors open

by Holly Gordon

Joy Kardish is an unassuming woman. At a little more than five feet tall with a slight build, the Ottawa-based photographer is both soft-spoken and quick to smile — a genuine smile, one from the eyes.

Certain expectations

by Allan Wigney

Rhiannon Vogl admits it is not your typical exhibition.

Both sides now

by Allan Wigney

“We are angry,” reads a message on one wall of SAW Gallery. On another, misspelled but equally foreboding: “We don’t like yuo.” They, and other slogans scrawled in Spanish, confront guests of the basement exhibition space — black and white intrusions into Ottawa’s natural complacency.

Personality crises

by Allan Wigney

A tall, slender painting beckons you to the end of the narrow hallway of Wall Space Gallery, and to The Spaces in Between, an exhibition of paintings by Alexandra Chowaniec. The oil on canvas work, Feel My Bones, captures a couple in embrace, nude, their entwined bodies less than perfect — blemishes, bruises and veins tempering this tender moment, offering a visual record of life's emotional and physical blows.

Animal house

by Holly Gordon

The dolls look like they could eat the characters in Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

It’s the teeth that give them away. Sitting in a glass case just outside the door to the Ottawa Art Gallery’s ART Rental and Sales space, artist Stefan Thompson’s five characters have soft, sewn bodies that look huggable.

Wanda Koop's colours

by Holly Gordon

“That’s it folks, that’s all there is,” says Wanda Koop, lifting both hands up in the air and beginning to laugh. “That’ll be 45 years’ worth.”

Another glance

by Yvonne Ivanescu

Dressed in a plain t-shirt and jeans, Janelle Bosse is to the untrained eye an ordinary 16-year-old high school student. Her smile paired with a bubbly personality can be interpreted as naivety frequently attributed to the younger generation.