Join Gallery Odin for its 10th anniversary winter show
Silver Star may not be Valhalla, but atop one of its mountainous peaks, otherwise known as The Knoll, sits a gallery where artistic warriors have been wielding their finest works for the past 10 years.
Gallery Odin is once again celebrating the start of the alpine ski season, and this time they have a good reason to pull out the big spears, make that wine glasses, for its 10th anniversary season.
The exhibition will not only showcase a number of works by B.C. artists, but the gallery’s growth over the past decade.
“We have grown from one room to three, from 11 artists to 27, and showing over 100 wonderful pieces in our 10th anniversary winter show,” said Odin’s Maria Molnar who owns the gallery with husband Kalman. “Ten years of immersion in local art and association with local artists has made us believe in them and made us give our undivided attention to their work.”
As in the past, this year’s show will feature a variety of styles, mediums, themes, shapes and forms.
“We love working with the talent we have in the Okanagan, and show it off to the world, and send pieces to Australia, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Florida, etc.,” said Kalman.
“No one appreciates our Okanagan artists more then our loyal, local clients who have been returning to our shows year after year and acquiring pieces for their collections. We are extremely thankful for the local support.”
To recognize the occasion, the Molnars have invited two new artists to the fold.
Falkland’s Rosanna Marmont and Naramata’s Dennis Evans will join the roster of 27 B.C. artists in showing their work for the winter-long show.
“Both will show new and innovative youthful work and the beautiful summarized years of artistic experience with their creative pieces,” said Maria.
A 2009 graduate of the fine arts program at Montréal’s Concordia University, Marmont, who is a native of New Zealand and has lived in Alberta and B.C., has been training and apprenticing in various mediums, including painting and ceramics.
“My present work aims to emphasize the visual and sensorial aesthetics of landscape, complicated by how we situate ourselves relatively, both psychologically and physically,” she said in her artist’s bio. “As farmers, the working of the land for my family has been the most simple and direct manner in which identity, belonging and purpose within a physical context is determined.”
Alberta native Evans studied fine art intensively, receiving his bachelors at the University of Calgary, and then his masters at the University of Houston.
Returning to Calgary in 1980, he became the production manager for a major pottery manufacturing company producing hand-crafted wares that were sold across Canada, and also worked as a consultant on a First Nations economic development initiative which created gift-ware items sold across Canada.
Now in B.C., he and his wife, Patricia, run a studio-workshop in a garden surrounding in Naramata, where Evans works on his landscapes, portraits and pottery.
Other artists showing their work at Odin’s 10th anniversary winter show include Bonnie Anderson, Glenn Clark, Colleen Couves, Ann Crook, Karel Doruyter, Julie Elliot, Dawn Emerson, Edward Epp, Leonhard Epp, Lynne Grillmair, Ginny Hall, Bob Kingsmill, Peter Lawson, Jerry R. Markham, Debby Merkel, Elizabeth Moore, Destanne Norris, Jean-Francois Racine, Barry Rafuse, Dana Roman, Al Scott, Julia Trops, Todd R. White, Deborah Wilson and Charlene Woodbury,
Artists will be in attendance and refreshments will be served at two opening receptions open to the public this week, Thursday from 6 to 10 p.m. and Saturday from 2 to 6 p.m.
Gallery hours thereafter will be every Wednesday and Saturday from 1 to 6 p.m. for the remainder of the winter season, or call 250-503-0822 to visit the gallery at other times.
By Kristin Froneman – Vernon Morning Star
