Kelowna Art Gallery
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The Kelowna Art Gallery is a Canadian public art gallery located in Kelowna, British Columbia founded in 1976. The gallery has become a leading public art gallery serving the central Okanagan region. The gallery was incorporated as a not-for-profit charitable society in 1977. The gallery’s permanent collection started with with the acquisition of After the Rain by Okanagan resident Irvine Adams (1902-1992) in 1977. Since then, close to 500 objects have been acquired by the gallery through donation and purchase.
[edit] Building
The Kelowna Art Gallery was originally housed in the Kelowna Centennial Museum. In 1996, a 15,758 square foot facility meeting national standards for secure, climate-controlled storage and exhibition of artworks was constructed by the City of Kelowna and leased to the museum. On November 1, 2006, the Kelowna Art Gallery was granted “A” status by the Minister of Canadian Heritage.
The facility is divided into a number of galleries, including the Treadgold Bullock Gallery, the Reynolds Gallery and the outdoor Rotary Courtyard. Classes, community presentations, lectures, and other outreach programs are delivered in the Kiwanis-Hiram Walker front hall and Scotiabank Classroom.
An expansion of the facilities is planned for sometime in 2010. The anticipated expansion will include a climate-controlled gallery space dedicated to the ongoing exhibition of work in from the permanent collection of the gallery.
[edit] Collections
Works in the Kelowna Art Gallery permanent collection are displayed in the Treadgold Bullock Gallery. The focus of the gallery are the historical and contemporary visual arts of the Okanagan, typically representing the landscape and images of the region, but also portraiture and abstract works. The types of works in the gallery’s collection include paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, and photography. Most of the work in the collection was created since 1940.
Notable works held by the gallery include creations by Okanagan artists such as Mary Bull, Ann Kipling and Gary Pearson. Works by other prominent western Canadian artists include those of Chris Cran, Faye HeavyShield and Ken Lum. Other works from the rest of Canada and around the world include that by Wanda Koop, Aganetha Dyck and Tony Scherman.
Since 2001, the Kelowna Art Gallery has hosted the Indigenous Arts Service Organization/ULLUS Collective exhibition of First Nations contemporary film and video art. Residents from the local Westbank First Nation community attend the screening and opening reception featuring speeches by Westbank First Nation leaders, traditional drumming, and artists’ talks.
Former curator Linda Sawchyn organized the gallery’s 2004 Break Away! exhibition, which received the 2005 BCMA Museums in Motion Award of Merit, and road runner, which brought together for the first time works exploring road trips and car culture in drawing, photography, painting, sculpture and video by Ken Gerberick, Lee Goreas, David Pirrie, Jason van Horne and Collin Zipp. In 2006, Kelowna Art Gallery Curator Linda Sawchyn joined with other small city art gallery curators to co-produce an exhibition that will travel to each participating curator’s institution: Art Gallery of Swift Current, Estevan Art Gallery & Museum, Art Gallery of Prince Albert, Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery, Esplanade Art Gallery, and the Two Rivers Art Gallery. This joint project has strengthened professional working relationships among the six western Canadian curators and their respective institutions.
