2014 Convocation Exhibit

In honour of all our graduands this year, the Athabasca University Art Committee would like to showcase some of the exciting artworks the University acquired in the past year. Please join us for a tour of the exhibit in the Athabasca University Main Building.

In 2013, art collector Lorraine Woollard donated 24 works of contemporary Canadian art to the Athabasca University Art Collection. The donation represents a broad survey of contemporary Canadian art from the late 1970s to 2005. The collection comprises original paintings in oil, acrylic and watercolour as well as prints. Distinguished, established artists such as Francine Gravel, David Blackwood, Jane Ash Poitras, Joe Fafard, and Wanda Koop are represented as well as mid-career artists such as Sky Glabush, and rising, new artists such as Joseph Siddiqi.

Former AU employee Bente Roed donated a collection of 225 pieces of functional and sculptural ceramics, glass and soapstone artworks to the AU Art Collection. Roed worked at AU in the 70s and early 80s and was the chair of the Art Acquisition Committee that coordinated the art competitions for the first major, permanent works of art on the Athabasca campus.

The Roed Collection focuses on major ceramic artists who worked mainly in Alberta, some of whom achieved national and international recognition, and includes pieces by ceramists Harlan House, Ted Diakow, sculptor Charles Hilton, and a raku artist Elke Blodgett. An art historian by training, Roed envisions her donation being used for research and study of the studio pottery renaissance in Alberta that flourished in the 60s, 70s and 80s. She hopes that her donation will encourage other collectors to donate ceramics to AU.

Sylvain Voyer

Was born in 1939 in Edmonton, Alberta. He is well known for his ‘en pleine aire’ painting style depicting icons of western Canada—canola fields, sweeping skies, valleys and meadows, trees in autumn, fields in winter.

In the 1980s he began painting in Mexico, and by 1993 he had a winter studio on the west coast of Mexico. Voyer is well-known for the seascapes and for the Monarch butterfly migration paintings influenced by his time in Mexico, like the item presented here, On Leaving the Wind.

In 2013 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by Athabasca University for his outstanding contributions to the visual arts in Alberta.

In 2013 the Athabasca University Art Committee purchased a set of the SNAP Gallery’s 30^th Anniversary Portfolio featuring prints from 30 different SNAP artists.

For more information see: https://snapartists.com/exhibition/30th-anniversary-portfolio-exhibition/

In 1982, a handful of artists established the Society of Northern Alberta Print Artists (SNAP) as an independent, cooperatively run fine art printshop in the historic Great West Saddlery Building, in central Edmonton, Alberta. SNAP‘s mandate is to promote, facilitate and communicate printmaking as an art form. In 1996 SNAP opened a gallery. In 2000, the society built its own gallery, the SNAP Gallery, which exhibits print and print-related art. In that year SNAP also added its second printshop.