Hand-picked Okanagan – Okanagan Group Exhibition

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Joice M. Hall, "Epiphany," 2015

oil on canvas 24" x 96"

On Thursday, August 03 Hand-picked Okanagan, Headbones’ annual exhibition of Okanagan artists - a selection geared to WOW - officially opens with a reception from 6 to 8 PM and many of the artists in attendance.

• ALSO: Dave Soroka Concert Aug 02  doors open 7 PM. Tickets ($20) reserved at 250-542-8987 or info@headbonesgallery.com
• Dave Soroka stops in on his way to Arts Wells to refresh our ears with his original songs. Hailing from Grand Forks, this veteran musician is a well known figure on the music circuit, famous not only for his song writing but also for his coffee with his portable coffee wagon churning out lattes and cappuccinos at local festivals. Dave Soroka has a lot of energy and though he swears he’s not on an all-day coffee break, he has written over 350 songs as of the count just before he played for 24 hours straight as a fund raiser for MOM in Fort St. James last August.
• The doors open at 7 and the songs begin at 7:30 but Headbones is only in for a few hours so this concert ends at 10 PM. Tickets can be reserved by phone at 250-542-8987. Hand-picked Okanagan will be in the galleries.

Hand-picked Okanagan is a chance to see a variety of high caliber art works and if Wednesday is the evening chosen, to catch the concert as well. The line-up is stellar - Doug Alcock, David Alexander, Glenn Clark, Carin Covin, Briar Craig, Robert Dmytruk, Jen Dyck, Leonard Epp, Diane Feught, Johann Feught, Joice M. Hall, John Hall, Fern Helfand, Angelika Jaeger, Byron Johnston, Ann Kipling, Patricia Kushner, Mary Smith McCulloch, Steve Mennie, Rhonda Neufeld and Rodney Konopaki, Herald Nix, Julie Oakes, Gary Pearson, Stephen Lee Scott, Heidi Thompson, Laura Widmer and David Wilson

The landscape is unavoidably featured in Hand-picked Okanagan but the take on the ‘scape is varied. Headbones has just received a painting by Joice Hall that shows a strip of Okanagan Lake with the Mission Hill Winery tower in the foreground. It captures the wonder of the valley as a beam of winter sun illuminates a strip of land. Works by Laura Widmer, Mary Mc Culloch, Herald Nix, Angelika Jaeger, Rodney Knopaki with Rhonda Neufeld and Ann Kipling bring the perfect balance between detail and vista into view. David Wilson’s landscape series addressing water uses signs and symbols derived from his Okanagan Nation’s heritage in combination with a bright pop style. Glenn Clarke a resident of Penticton shows an Elite (hint) view of his inner city rendered in a super realist style.

John Hall takes another turn on super realism with his 60 x 80 inch painting Rattle. Not to be a spoiler but to give a hint – this is a slap of over-the-top sweetness, a sugar rush big enough to visually satisfy a serious choc-a-holic.

Landscape veers into abstraction in a large David Alexander painting, Smoke on the Water. Alexander picks beauty, color, shape and nuance from those summer days when the smoke drifts in as if he has captured images of the powerful fire in direct confrontation with living, growing nature. Carin Covin’s new abstract circular composition brings to mind the essential elements of Okanagan sun and sky while Heidi Thompson’s detailed handling brings to the fore the intricacy of relationships between natural forces. Doug Alcock celebrates a larger perspective with a sculpture with the year 150 in mind and in Robert Dmytruk’s works, though they may have initially been prompted by an aerial view of the land, the images are more akin to a party than a respite.

The psychological kaleidoscope of humanity is seen from a variety of artistic interpretations in the works of Briar Craig, Gary Pearson, Diane Feught, Johann Feught, Byron Johnston, Patricia Kushner Steve Mennie, Julie Oakes, Jen Dyck and Steven Lee Scott. Their works bring to light the multifarious social and cultural landscape, raised here in the Okanagan and coaxed into being by the skill and talents of exceptional artists.

Hand-picked Okanagan runs August 02 until October 15 at Headbones Gallery, 6700 Old Kamloops Road, Vernon. The hours are 12 to 6 PM, Tuesday through Saturday.