Painter, drawer, and sculptor Walter Dion will be the guest curator for the 47th Prince Albert Winter Art Show and Sale at the Mann Art Gallery in February.

Dion lives and works in Upstate New York, but was born in Saskatoon. Mann Art Gallery curator Marcus Miller said it’s great to have an internationally known artist with Saskatchewan roots curating the show.

“Everybody knows him,” Miller said. “He doesn’t work here anymore, but it was important to me that we get somebody—a well-established artist like Wally—who is known here, but has a national and an international reputation. We’re just really lucky to have him.”

Galleries across Canada and the U.S. have displayed Dion’s work. The most recent were an individual show at the University of Saskatchewan’s College Art Galleries, and a group show at the Wanuskewin Gallery in Saskatoon. Both shows were in 2022.

Miller said Dion is known for his ability to work in a variety of mediums, which makes him an ideal candidate to curate the show.

“He was on my radar for years, actually,” Miller explained. “He’s one of these hot, new, great Indigenous artists. He’s doing contemporary art, and his art practice is so varied. He’s a real maker. He’s a builder.”

Miller expects the Winter Festival Show will include between 100 and 150 pieces of art. Dion will arrive at least two weeks before opening night to curate the exhibit.

“The winter festival show is mostly painting, but there is a lot of sculpture in it,” Miller said. “Then you always have people who are doing wild and whacky things, so it’s really important to have somebody who has a range of interests and experience in their own practice so that they can deal with all this stuff and they don’t get hung up on whether this is an oil painting or an acrylic painting.

“Those questions aren’t so important as the actual work of art, which, today, is multidisciplinary, and Wally is certainly a multidisciplinary artist.”

The 2023 Winter Festival Art Show will run from Feb. 10 to Mar. 25. The show also marks the first time since 2020 the opening reception will return as an in-person event.

“It will be my first experience of this show really going, so I’m really looking forward to it,” Miller said. “We’re going to continue to broadcast it thought because it was such a hit with everybody and it’s in the middle of winter and people can’t always get in. They always enjoyed being able to watch it on screen.”