GERMÁN JARAMILLO-MCKENZIE: Saskatchewan Centennial, until July 30, 2005, Victoria Art Gallery, Regina

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GERMÁN JARAMILLO-MCKENZIE

Saskatchewan Centennial

Until July 30, 2005

Victoria Art Gallery, Regina

By Kristin Linklater

Enter Regina’s Victoria Art Gallery and you become immersed in the world of Colombian-Canadian painter Germán Jaramillo-Mckenzie. Eager to bring more Saskatchewan art to the public, Jaramillo-Mckenzie started his own cooperative gallery in 2003 and hasn’t looked back. In addition to a diverse collection by Saskatchewan artists in media from porcelain to wood carving, the gallery is also home to the artist’s own studio where he works and teaches private classes. His works are scattered throughout the gallery, juxtaposing realist oil paintings of his native Colombia and his home in Canada, where he settled in 1989. His canvases explore what he is nostalgic for and also what surrounds him — in both ways he is “painting home,” combining artistic expression with his own visceral response. “Through the process I recreate a lot of memories and it comes alive,” he says of his work. The Saskatchewan Centennial exhibition will also include the work of 16 other artists who are part of the cooperative, including photographers Gilbert Complaisance and Gerald Matthews, and painter Andrew Salgado.

Represented by: Victoria Art Gallery, Regina.