by koac | Jul 14, 2019 | News
At the end of June, we had our unveiling of the Roy Leadbeater sculpture “Steel Wave”, a donation to the Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Our fields were full of cars from guests and the turnout was incredibly humbling....
by koac | Jul 12, 2019 | News
On behalf of the Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre, we’re ecstatic to announce our first ever emerging artist in residence as part of our new program for emerging artists, Lisa Hodgkinson. Lisa received her undergrad at the Alberta University of the Arts, where she found...
by koac | Jun 28, 2019 | News
“Steel Wave is 2 tonnes, 5.5 metres tall, 3.6 metres wide and valued at about $250K when installed in 1978”. It’s been about a year since CBC Calgary moved four kilometres west from its old location just off Memorial Drive N.W. The...
by koac | Jun 28, 2019 | News
Harry Kiyooka and Katie Ohe have dedicated their lives to art. Their work has helped shape the local, national and international art scenes. And now they are taking the step of not just being figurative institutions on the scene, but turning their home into a literal...
by koac | Jun 28, 2019 | News
It’s only fitting that the Glenbow Museum, an institution that among other things seeks to educate, learned a thing or two when it set out to chronicle 50 years of artistic output in Calgary. One of the earliest realizations concerned the scale of the undertaking....
by Pieter Vorster | Jun 20, 2019 | Programs
Youth Collage Program UPDATES ON NEW WORKSHOPS COMING SOON ; What to Expect Guided by Katie Ohe, each student is encouraged to develop and evolve a single idea through collage. This practice of creative thought development, which may involve several sketchbook...
by Pieter Vorster | Jun 20, 2019 | Programs
Blog ; What to Expect With generous donor support, KOAC started its emerging artist program based on Katie Ohe’s personal experience of growth as an artist and the need for “having concentrated space and time to resolve my art ideas in a creative environment.”...
by koac | Apr 7, 2019 | News
Harry Kiyooka and Katie Ohe are the power couple of Calgary’s art world. He’s a painter and art collector, she’s a sculptor and teacher, and both of them are known from coast to coast for their impact on the Canadian art scene. Now, the couple is in...
by koac | Mar 26, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Metal artist Ben McLeod works in a very intuitive way, allowing the direction of a work to be determined by the materials at hand and the energy emanating from them. Open to the unexpected, McLeod is willing to take the time to resolve a piece, letting the metal...
by koac | Mar 26, 2017 | Auction Items, Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Silent Auction will feature works by: Raymond Arrnatt Shane Arsenault Derek Besant Rose Braun Monique Blom Karen Brown Sarabeth Carnat Dave Casey Linda Craddock Sandrine Demeure Rhys Douglas Farrell Velma Foster Sibeal Foyle Alexandra Haeseker Tia Halliday Aron Hill...
by koac | Mar 25, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Wil Murray explores the idea of the journey as transformative, using painting, photography, and collage to investigate the effect of time and motion upon substance. Objects transmute beyond their original purpose, becoming forms in space: painted, photographed,...
by koac | Mar 24, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Katie Ohe, RCA, LLD is a Canadian sculptor of international renown, a beloved teacher, and known as one of the first artists to make abstract art in Alberta. Born in the hamlet of Peers in 1937, Ohe studied at ACAD, Montreal School of Art and Design, Sculpture Centre...
by koac | Mar 23, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
John Kenneth Esler, RCA (1933–2001) “was considered one of Canada’s finest printmakers for many years” by Canadian Contemporary Printmakers (Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1982). Esler began his long career in printmaking in 1963; he favoured the etching process, but also...
by koac | Mar 20, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Born in Calgary in 1928, Harry Mitsuo Kiyooka, RCA, is an exceptionally accomplished painter and printmaker. Kiyooka holds two undergraduate and two Masters degrees in Education (University of Alberta), Art (Universities of Manitoba and Michigan) and Fine Arts...
by koac | Mar 18, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Dubbed “the first Canadian native modernist,” Alex Janvier, RCA, is one of this country’s most acclaimed artists. As a member of the Indian Group of Seven,* Janvier is an eminent pioneer of contemporary aboriginal art. Janvier developed his unique signature style of...
by koac | Mar 12, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Mark Dicey is a painter whose interest is abstraction or nonrepresentational work. Colours, shapes, textures, and structural relationships of the everyday inspire his process and the resulting work. For Dicey, the reactionary relationship inherent in the painting...
by koac | Mar 12, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Trained as a printmaker, Marjan Eggermont explores materials and transformative processes. Early on, she became more interested in the metal plates from which her etchings were made than the resulting prints. This led to investigating materials such as steel, copper,...
by koac | Mar 9, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Sandrine Demeure is an award-winning Belgian ceramic artist who studied with Katie Ohe in Calgary in 1985. A friend of both Katie Ohe and Harry Kiyooka, Demeure has worked for three summers in Ohe’s studio (1998, 2004, 2006). She is also a printmaker and a member of...
by koac | Mar 9, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Describing her process, Laura Pope is succinct: “I walk, look and shoot. Working digitally provides a fast and responsive medium which allows me to deeply explore this intense visual experience.” Pope examines the cultural, sociological and abstract juxtapositions...
by koac | Mar 8, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
The work of multimedia artist Peter von Tiesenhausen has evolved from landscape painting to installation, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, and complex multifaceted collaborations that can involve video, performance, and events. His work deals with the concepts of...
by koac | Mar 8, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Eric Louie creates works that simultaneously acknowledge and deny spatial illusion, yet respond to the natural order of things. Louie melds organic and geometric elements in multiple planes without falling into pattern or repetition. His luminous “mind paintings” hint...
by koac | Mar 8, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Chris Cran, RCA, has been described in the New York Times as a painter who “has built a career on tampering with people’s perceptions.” The Banff Centre noted his penchant for “turning nothing into something, with the slightest push.” He explores the issues around...
by koac | Mar 8, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Shane Arsenault has a deep respect for the origins of photography. His work spans multiple mediums and techniques in the field: he makes use of everything from the historic Wet Plate Collodion process to today’s progressive and punctual digital compositing. Arsenault...
by koac | Mar 8, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
To Karen Brown, art is all about seeing the world differently, and using art to express feelings about the environment as it is experienced. Art is, therefore, the vehicle used to interpret responses to everyday life. Brown’s work is inspired by architecture, colour,...
by koac | Mar 8, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
The compelling work of Dave Casey, a combination of digital photography and acrylics, cannot be placed in any single school of painting. Casey’s artistic practice is one of meditation. To him, “paintings are silent, bearing witness to the stories we have to tell.” He...
by koac | Mar 8, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
David John Foy and Jennifer Saleik have combined their artistic interests and talents as DaveandJenn since 2004. Foy, hailing from Edmonton, and Saleik, originally from Velbert, Germany, both earned BFAs With Distinction from ACAD in 2006. DaveandJenn collaborations...
by koac | Mar 8, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Marty Kaufman creates motifs in glass, sculpture, drawings, and photographs, using specific subjects, landscapes or architectures to interpret the transitory experience of place. Kaufman’s work explores a sense of place where one, in a moment of awareness, suddenly...
by koac | Mar 8, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Sibéal Foyle (sh+bail) comes from a rich Gaelic tradition of oral history and storytelling; her work is infused with personal narratives from her large and multicultural family. The diverse stories of her relatives are interwoven with farreaching global situations:...
by koac | Mar 8, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
David Foxcroft’s fascination with interiors is embodied by his use of strategically placed colour, tonal variance, and a medley of mixed media. Images informed by art history or everyday life can repeat, reverse, or re-emerge on different surfaces; constructions can...
by koac | Mar 8, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Through photographs and moving images, Laurel Johannesson examines certain facets of suspended temporality: timelessness, limbo, oblivion, and forgetfulness. In her recent series The Oblivion Seekers, Johannesson explores the relationship of the sea to land or...
by koac | Mar 8, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Canadian artist Alexandra Haeseker, RCA, explores the relationships between living beings in a common environment. Her imagery ranges from contemplative dog walks from the dogs’ point of view to books of ash, earth, ice and parchment displaying creatures in a...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
The work of Jason Frizzell explores the idea of transition periods, physical or emotional, that shape us as unique moments in time. Inspired by dreams, movies and literature, Frizzell’s miniature scale environments feel post-apocalyptic—in some cases complete with...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
The career of Takao Tanabe, RCA, incredibly, spans nearly 70 years. Born in 1926 in Prince Rupert, Tanabe is one of Canada’s most important and enduring painters. In 2013, Tanabe received the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Visual Arts. In 1999, he was...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Victo Cicansky asserts that “art has to come from somewhere.” In his case, Cicansky’s witty bronze and ceramic sculptures are all about the backyard garden: the gardens he remembers from early childhood, the gardens he grows today. Cicansky writes, “Making a garden is...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Born in Calgary in 1928, Harry Mitsuo Kiyooka, B.Ed, BFA, MA, MFA, RCA, is an exceptionally accomplished painter and printmaker. Kiyooka holds two undergraduate and two Masters degrees in Education (University of Alberta), Art (Universities of Manitoba and Michigan)...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
The work of Canadian artist Sarabeth Carnat addresses beauty, colour, comfort, ritual, and relationships. She has a private practice creating one-of-a-kind production and conceptual jewellery, metal painting, Judaica, and anodized aluminum objects. Born in Calgary to...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Tanya Rusnik “Untitled AfterImage Drawing #39″ 22″ x 26” Gouache and Graphite on Vellum Silent Auction Lot #131 Fair Market Value $2800
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Paul Kuhn is well known as the owner of Paul Kuhn Gallery: founded nearly 35 years ago as Calgary’s first contemporary art gallery, Paul Kuhn Gallery was for many years the only venue presenting experimental art and emerging artists. However, Kuhn is also an...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Multidisciplinary artist and educator Monique Blom lives and works “in the wild woods of Saskatchewan [where] her practice includes chopping wood, building ponds and creating edges.” Blom is deftly balanced on the edges of the prairies, boreal forest, and society,...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Velma Alvada Foster was one of the first artists in Calgary to focus on printmaking when it was still a relatively minor art form. Born in Maidstone, Saskatchewan in 1938, Foster moved to Calgary to study at ACAD under Illingworth Kerr, Ron Spickett, Stan Perrott, and...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Walter May amalgamates “curious objects”—obsolete, derelict, and disconnected from their original functionality— into unconventional sculptures that challenge the viewer to derive meaning from the assemblage. Salvaged from junk shops, flea markets, and...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Tia Halliday uses performance, dance, and photography to literally “get under the skin” of her paintings. Halliday analyzes, creates and questions the body’s relationship to painting and sculpture: she choreographs painting tropes such as edge, flatness, depth, and...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Linda Craddock understands that none of us live exclusively in the present. To Craddock, the concept of now coalesces our personal and collective experiences within a shared, current framework of simply existing. She explores the layers of conflict between conscious...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Canadian artist Geoffrey Hunter approaches painting as an archaeological process. An archaeologist uncovers what has been lost, classifies the debris, and attempts to fit it into an historical narrative. Hunter recovers selected fragments of culture, history,...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Reinhard Skoracki launches his sculpted figures against a backdrop of current or historical drama. He believes that we are caught in the social and political views of our time, having no choice but to witness the swirl of that time’s passing within and around us....
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Derek Michael Besant, RCA, is well known for his unorthodox use of materials and technology; hybrid forms often include soundtracks relating to themes of memory, language, and the body as a metaphor. Dislocation of the body haunts his imagery; impressions, gestures,...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Experimental artist John Will, RCA, infuses his work with a distinct blend of political satire, biting wit, and sardonic commentary on pop culture. Dating back to the 1960s, his autobiographical art encompasses the big philosophical questions around death, mortality,...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Born in Calgary in 1928, Harry Mitsuo Kiyooka, RCA, is an exceptionally accomplished painter and printmaker. Kiyooka holds two undergraduate and two Masters degrees in Education (University of Alberta), Art (Universities of Manitoba and Michigan) and Fine Arts...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
The work of Calgary-based artist Laura Vickerson varies widely in form, medium, and scale. From intimate, garment-based pieces of gauze and wax to large- scale installations involving rose petals pinned to yards of sheer fabric, Vickerson has won critical acclaim for...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Katie Ohe, RCA, LLD is a Canadian sculptor of international renown, a beloved teacher, and known as one of the first artists to make abstract art in Alberta. Born in the hamlet of Peers in 1937, Ohe studied at ACAD, Montreal School of Art and Design, Sculpture Centre...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
George Webber, RCA, has been photographing the people, landscape and urban environment of the Canadian west for over thirty-five years. The acclaimed American photographer Mary Ellen Mark describes him as “a lyrical poet with his camera.” Tobi Bruce of the Art Gallery...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Helena Hadala, RCA, received a Master of Fine Arts in Drawing from the University of Calgary (2002) after maintaining a full time studio practice for over 30 years. She is an elected member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, and has exhibited in Canada, USA,...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Chris Flodberg is committed to the traditions of descriptive painting while depicting the present, mainly in terms of landscapes, figures, and the often overlooked, intimate spaces around him. Although known for his large-scale, realistic oil paintings, Flodberg also...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
The work of Ken Webb reflects on the desensitizing of photographic images, using a process of filtering or interference. Webb initially assembles a variety of photographic images in digital files, before reinterpreting them into paintings. Finished works incorporate...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
The artwork of Rose Braun is gestural, open, and uncontrived, leaving interpretation to the viewer. Braun’s style has evolved from a tightly realistic mode to embracing looser methods of application and rendering, producing expressive images that are open-ended and...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Canadian artist Nate McLeod is currently focused on the concepts of ownership, authenticity, immediacy, value, and remediation. His work also explores the role of the Internet and other digital technologies in contemporary painting. McLeod graduated with a BFA in...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Op art, once popular in the 1960s, is riding the retro trend with the trippy work of emerging Canadian artist Rhys Douglas Farrell. His paintings create optical images and illusions through colour and shape, making detailed use of colour theory and paying particular...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Multimedia artist Martina MacDonald-Bleriot aspires to heal as well as create through her art. She employs traditional craft techniques, including a carefully selected array of gemstones, metals, and found objects from around the world. Crochet, knitting, felting,...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Sculptor Blake Senini has explored the interaction of light with architectural forms for over a decade, particular with the negative spaces between structures that enclose light. He strives to evoke the same quality of light found in great cathedrals, churches,...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
William (Bill) Laing, RCA, is an influential Canadian artist who reflects on longing, absence, and the influences of memory. Laing’s meticulous prints and photographs deal with textures and pattern; working with photos, etching, silkscreen and assemblage, he often...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Dubbed “the first Canadian native modernist,” Alex Janvier, RCA, is one of this country’s most acclaimed artists. As a member of the Indian Group of Seven,* Janvier is an eminent pioneer of contemporary aboriginal art. Janvier developed his unique signature style of...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
The colour-saturated, perfectly finished sculptures of Alexander Caldwell playfully perch at the intersection where minimalism meets pop art. Caldwell employs smooth curves and sharp angles, round volumes and flat planes; each piece is a single bright colour or coated...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
The paintings of Judy Ueda radiate a sense of stillness and peace while signaling dynamic movement and change. Born in Calgary, Ueda’s work is a response to being at home in the vast solitude of the Alberta prairie. Ueda is drawn to the minimalist contemporary style;...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Minoru Ueda is a professional architect in Japan and founder of MU Design in Calgary; he divides his time between this city and Tokyo. When in Canada, Ueda makes art and volunteers for the art community; when in Japan, he practices, teaches and does consulting in...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Katie Ohe, RCA, LLD is a Canadian sculptor of international renown, a beloved teacher, and known as one of the first artists to make abstract art in Alberta. Born in the hamlet of Peers in 1937, Ohe studied at ACAD, Montreal School of Art and Design, Sculpture Centre...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
“Through imagery I explore the world I see around me… through materiality I explore its vulnerability to process.” Susan Fraser Hughes “First Conversations with Home #54″, 2016 11″ x 14” Silent Auction Lot #118 Fair Market...
by koac | Mar 7, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Multidisciplinary artist Aron Hill is known for his elegant minimalist approach to drawing, painting, and installation. He employs a few select tools, colours and objects to explore narratives, architecture, and the natural world. Initially gravitating to abstract...
by koac | Mar 5, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
Well-known Canadian artist Peter Deacon, RCA, explores the geographical and metaphorical significance of the Canadian Rockies, particularly around the Continental Divide. Using a process of “autobiographical mapping”, Deacon incorporates geometry and personal...
by koac | Mar 3, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Silent
Raymond Arnatt, ARCA, once said, “The process of art making becomes an adventure, a journey. It is a mixture of having priorities, having an intention…a direction [and] sensibilities and then out of all that fantastic mixture…to generate a work of art. I...
by koac | Mar 3, 2017 | Gala Auction 2017, Live
David Burdeny translates his intimate appreciation for the structure, details and metaphorical value of space into sublime observations on how the contemporary world is still pregnant with mystery and potential. Whether focused on ordinary spaces or iconic settings,...
What we seek is to bring a lifestyle, a fusion of the experience of what art is… where people can come and mingle with the art, but also, for artists, to sit and contemplate life, retreat, and find inspiration in our future sculpture botanic garden, wetlands and woods sanctuary. 