CELEBRATE CANADA 150 - Allan Harding MacKay, Susan Elkins, and Bradley Keys

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Allan Harding MacKay RCA, "Boreal Series #2," 2017

mixed media on paper, Courtesy of Willock & Sax Gallery

BANFF GALLERY & WINE HOP – on October 7. 

CELEBRATE CANADA 150 – October – Allan Harding MacKay is in the trees with his latest BOREAL SERIES – The artist integrates painting and photography into one image to go beyond the pictorial experience and play with the juxtaposition of reality and illusion. 

The works are based on spontaneous snap-shots gathered from his daily walks in Banff.  He then edits and manipulates the image before painting and drawing into it with pastel, ink, charcoal and wax. This work is not literal landscape.  Harding MacKay engages with drama and light, the clash of weather systems (pushing plausibility), references to 19^th C. Romantic landscape techniques, in addition to employing exaggerated form by compressing the visual information into a pre-determined format (hence the extended height of the trees).  Within a 21^st C. context, this powerful combination invites evocations of moody sublimity, contemplation of the art history of landscape, as well as introspection of our reactions to environment – dramatic or otherwise.

NEW WORKS by Susan Elkins who uses colour to express the arrangements and harmonies of her subjects, whether it is mountain peaks, still life or sun-filled flower gardens. 

And Bradley Keys is back in the studio with an emphasis on whimsy, flow and rhythm.  The artist has produced energetic vessels that speak, through his established palette, forms and textures, to prairies, mountains, fields, water and sky.