University of Calgary

40 years of fine art

showAlumni exhibit most comprehensive in history of faculty

By Ian Warwick

Martin Herbert has been curating exhibitions in the Mezzanine Gallery at the University Theatre since 2000, and every year they have featured either a solo or group alumni exhibition.

This year he’s helping launch the largest alumni exhibition the Faculty of Fine Arts has ever undertaken. Thanks to a grant from the 40th Anniversary Special Projects Fund, and the help of Wanda Rottenfusser, BFA’89, and Department of Art head Arthur Nishimura, the faculty is presenting 40 Years of Fine Art.

This exhibition was selected from the works of more than 850 BFA alumni who have graduated since 1966, and although it doesn’t feature an alumnus from every year, it’s the most comprehensive exhibition ever mounted in the faculty.

“I wanted to see what our alumni were doing now; to see their progress,” says Herbert. “And I wanted to have a chance to show current students some of the remarkable works our alumni have produced over the past four decades.”

Herbert, a 1980 BFA alumnus, is a painter and has been working in the theatre as a scene carpenter since 1978.

 “The university was a very different place back in the 1960s,” says Barbara Ballachey, BFA’71, one of the artists featured in the exhibit.

 “But I think the university today retains a lot of the energy, enthusiasm and entrepreneurial spirit that drew me to it back in 1968.”

The Department of Art now has a wonderful space, and many more students and faculty, but Ballachey says it has retained the willingness to be open to new ideas and forms of creative expression.

Ballachey says it took her 50 years to paint her most recent work. “That’s how long it took me to be the artist I am today because my skills are always progressing.” This is what Herbert is trying to capture by showing alumni exhibitions every year.

40 Years of Fine Art runs Sept. 1 to Oct. 13 in the University Theatre’s Mezzanine Gallery (weekdays 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.), the Little Gallery in the Department of Art, and the Fine Arts Dean’s Gallery (both open weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.) An opening reception from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. will be held on Sept. 14 in the Mezzanine Gallery. Admission is free.