For the first time in decades, Prince Albert’s John V. Hicks Gallery is hosting an artist in residence.
Gabriela Garcia-Luna is a multimedia artist based in Saskatchewan who blends photography, drawing, digital media and installation. Her pieces look into the botanical and natural worlds of the place she has lived: Mexico, India and Saskatchewan.
She will be artist-in-residence at the John V. Hicks Gallery at the Margo Fournier Arts Centre through May 23.
Jesse Campbell is a curator and arts administrator with the Mann Art Gallery. In an interview with the Herald, she says the residence was inspired to see an Artist in Residence back at the Hicks.
“It’s been a number of decades from my understanding. A couple of years ago, I was thinking about the history of this building. I’ve curated a number of exhibitions in this gallery and regularly I would hear stories from artists, from people in the community about just how dynamic this place was with a variety of people working in many different kinds of arts who would gather here regularly almost every day and create work, experiment, and share work just through simple conversations and also have time to share a cup of tea together.”
“I think exhibitions, when we see artwork in a gallery space, it does represent a lot of background experimentation and time spent researching different works, but we kind of see a finished product. I thought it’d be really interesting to dig a little bit more in depth and look into the actual process. It’s not a performance, but it’s the work is happening actively. It’s in action, so that’s where the thinking for this came about.”
Garcia-Luna has had work exhibited across the globe in Mexico, Canada, the United Kingdom and India. She has received grants and awards from the National Foundation for Culture and Art Fellowship in Mexico, the Saskatchewan Arts Board and Canada Council for the Arts.
She has recently completed a three month residence in Paris, France. While PA is a long ways away from Paris, Garcia-Lune says he is hoping to do a lot more reflection while in Saskatchewan.
“Paris has so much to offer and so much to see and so much to do. Here I am expecting to have some quiet time that is also necessary,” she said. “I have some time and space to kind of put down my luggage in a way and my photos and to look at the work and have space for thinking and creating in a way. It’s different but I think it’s quite wonderful.”
Garcia-Luna describes her work as being inspired by botanical life and bodies of water that are in motion.
She gave an artist’s talk late last month prior to the official start of her residency. In an interview with the Herald, Garcia-Luna says she loves having the space to do her work.
“I really love it because I’ve been coming back as a visitor, and I see how specific the community is. I’ve been always curious, how it was to interact with the community here, and I think not only about exhibiting, but the opportunity to have open doors will allow me to learn from the community, from the land, from the people, and at the same time, it is a wonderful opportunity for me to have this beautiful space and use it as a studio and make work responding to the place.”
Residents can visit Garcia-Luna during her open studio hours on May 14 (3-7 p.m.) and May 21 (1-4 p.m.). She will also run free cyanotype workshops on May 13 (10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.) and May 23 (10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.).
The residency will culminate with an exhibition from June 1-23 at the Hicks Gallery. Garcia-Luna will give a talk about her residency and speak about the exhibition on June 4. The show talk starts at 7 p.m.
— with files from Jason Kerr/Daily Herald
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