Emerging Prince Albert artist Janaya McCallum had a long-term plan to be on display at the John V. Hicks Gallery in the Margo Fournier Arts Centre.
After starting to paint seriously not even five years ago she now has her exhibition ‘Carousel of Time’ on display at the Hick Gallery.
McCallum appreciates having the exhibition on display and was on hand for an Art for Lunch feature on Friday at the gallery.
“It’s an honour,” McCallum said. “This is my hometown. I haven’t been painting for very long. This was more in my 10-year plan from when I started painting seriously after my daughter was born in 2022.”
McCallum said she applied for an exhibition on a whim last summer and the pieces came together quickly.
“I had a baby in between booking it and it happening so it was so busy,” McCallum said. “I created the whole collection in five months with my two kids.
“For it to be in my hometown, in such a beautiful gallery curated by Jesse Campbell who’s a dear friend of mine and someone just in the arts community that I really look up to (is an honour).
McCallum and Lana Wilson of the Mann Art Gallery discussed various pieces in the exhibit during Art for Lunch.
McCallum works in landscapes and figures and is inspired by Saskatchewan and her own cultural roots.
“My work is inspired by my home province and the land around us. I started exclusively in landscapes. and then incorporated some figures and still life of like, especially the Kokum scarf and the Ukrainian shawls,” McCallum said.
She said that the work combines her Ukrainian side and her French side.
“There’s so much of that culture around here, obviously, that I grew up in, so there wasn’t a more perfect place for me to have a solo exhibition,” she said. “I’m just so honoured.”
The title ‘Carousel of Time’ comes from a Joni Mitchell song, which combines an aspect of McCallum’s other artistic side as a member of the Trudel family of musicians.
“I’m a huge Joni Mitchell fan,” McCallum said. “I sang her music for many years and still do with my sister Jolissa in our band that we played in.
“It’s from her song, ‘The Circle Game’ (which) talks about just the endless, inevitable carousel of time that we’re on, the irrevers-ibility of life, and the sadness that can come with how you can’t turn back time. You’re just on this ride. That’s the sentiment that I wanted to capture in this collection.”
McCallum said her art in general is about her own life and the culture that surrounded her. She explained that she wanted to capture the vibrancy of memory and the feeling of nostalgia both in its the happiness of it but also the sorrow of remembering and not being able to return to things.
McCallum said that she was shocked and gratified to see her work become an exhibition after only really beginning painting four years ago.
“It was just one of those things, I think any artist knows you have to always be pushing yourself beyond what you think you’re capable of, or even what people tell you you’re capable of, because you are your own boss and your own motivator,” she said.
“I push myself quite hard to learn and improve and to try and take on opportunities that I think I could handle. This was one that I thought would be a stretch, but I thought I could do it, I could handle it, and so I’m happy with what I could accomplish.”
McCallum said that being a singer and being an artist are very similar because you have to have the same kind of goals.
“It takes from the same part of my psyche,” she explained. “Growing up in music, it was the same. I saw my parents be very entrepreneurial, creating opportunities for us as kids.”
That spirit she learned from her parents carries on into her painting.
“Nobody’s in my home—in my little laundry room that I painted—telling me that I have these deadlines coming up. I’m the one that puts that on myself and keeps it all running. I learned that from my parents for sure.”
This show is the first of many on McCallum’s schedule. She has another one coming up in Regina at the Government House Gallery next summer.
The opening reception for Carousel of Time was hosted on April 2. The exhibition will be in the Hicks Gallery until April 23.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
