BY KAREN BOSSICK
Gallery Walkers will be treated to the opening of two major exhibitions during the Labor Day Weekend Gallery Walk from 5 to 8 p.m. tonight—Friday, Aug. 30.
The first is the new “In Good Faith” exhibition from 4 to 5:30 p.m. at the REGIONAL HISTORY MUSEUM in Ketchum’s Forest Service Park at First and Washington streets.
The exhibit, offered by the Community Library Center for Regional History, tells the story of the 1868 Virginia City Treaty between the U.S. Government and the Shoshone Tribe. The treaty ceded 32,000 square miles of aboriginal territory in southwestern Montana and eastern Idaho in 1870 for a permanent treaty reservation in Central Idaho. But the treaty was never ratified.
The story is told through paintings, contemporary Shoshone artisan work and crafts, text panels, moving photographs and film.
When you’ve finished with that, head over to the SUN VALLEY CENTER FOR THE ARTS at Fifth and Washington streets for the opening of its new BIG IDEA project, “Marketplaces: From Open Air to Online.”
Participating artists Chad Erpelding and Mark R. Smith will discuss their artwork at 6 p.m.
The exhibit examines what the marketplace looks like in the 21st century following a radical transformation in the way Americans buy and sell goods and services. It examines how the transition to online shopping and one-stop shopping in big box stores has left vacant storefronts along Main Streets and empty malls.
It also examines how we buy and sell not just goods but pieces of the companies that provide these goods and how we’re affected by the Dow, NASDAQ and the S&P 500.
The exhibit features the work of Conrad Bakker, who recreated a hundred Idaho rocks as small sculptures displaying his interest in the Wood River Valley’s mining and mountain recreation history.
Also, Chad Erpelding, who explores the impact of the Brexit on financial markets around the world, as well as the value of major U.S. stock indices from the low point of the 2008 recession to the high point of the economic recovery.
Brittany Powell Parich’s “Checkout” includes life-size sculptures of every item in a checkout lane of her Fred Meyer store on one day, creating a kind of grocery store time capsule.
Brendan O’Connell has painted a portrait of American consumption in the 21st century. And Mark R. Smith investigates the history of commerce along the historic Silk Road with large geometric works that feature images of real items he found for sale on the more contemporary Silk Road website
Other highlights of tonight’s Gallery Walk:
BROSCHOFSKY GALLERIES, 360 East Avenue, is featuring a selection of spray paint works by Rudi Broschofsky. Young Broschofsky takes a street art approach to Western Art, which makes him unique to both genres as he works with hand-cut stencils and spray paint to create such works as “Chief and Companion.”
GAIL SEVERN GALLERY, 400 Firsts Avenue North, is featuring the large-scale landscapes and small intimate jewel-like oil paintings on linen of Victoria Adams. Adams is known for her signature skies and watery reflections, which dote on the inherent radiance of light found in nature as she highlights the transforming effects of light filtered through clouds falling on the land and water below.
The museum will also feature Robb Putnam’s sculpted animal forms created with cast-off blankets, shirts, fake fur, rags, thread, plastic bags and leather scraps. These will be augmented by his drawings, which feature images that evoke simplicity, innocence and play as if experienced in a dream.
KNEELAND GALLERY, 271 First Avenue N., will feature large-scale acrylic paintings by Jean Richardson of horses in motion. Richardson, who paints in vivid color, sees the horse as a metaphor for the human spirit—unbridled, striving, restless and sometimes heroic.
The gallery will also feature Northwest landscapes by realist painter Neal Philpott, who sees himself as a record keeper of a specific time and place. And Douglas Aagard will display new mountain pines and farmland of the Utah landscape.
MITCHELL CONTEMPORARY, 400 Sun Valley Road, will features works by Wood River Valley artist Wendy J. Pabich. Much of her artwork is formed by water—as a water lover, she has led graduate students to the wilds of Patagonia to help protect some of the world’s greatest unfettered rivers. And she’s applied her science and policy skills to water issues in the Wood River Valley.
“Making art is a magical vehicle for full expression, integration and connection,” said Pabich, who will be at the gallery tonight. “My paintings are colorful interpretations of the energy and iconic beauty of the West.”
GILMAN CONTEMPORARY, 661 Sun Valley Road, is showcasing “This is the Place”—new photographs by Wendel Wirth of agricultural buildings shot near Fairfield and in the Magic Valley. These buildings are punctuated by sharp slices of sky and land, each framed on paper with a Polaroid-like border, bringing to mind the fleeting and disposable landscapes inhabited by agriculture.
MESH GALLERY, 4th and Leadville streets, will feature images taken by Jeffrey Lubeck before and after the Beaver Creek Fire in 2013.
FRIESEN GALLERY, 320 First Avenue North, will feature the work of Barbara Vaughn, whose water works have appeared in such publications as the New York Times, Vanity Fair and Time. Also, works by Leslie Stoner, a Pacific Northwest islander whose abstract landscapes are inspired by song.
WOOD RIVER FINE ARTS, 360 East Avenue, will feature works artists showcased in the Prix de West Show in Oklahoma City Among them: George Carlson—a two-time recipient of the Prix de West Award for his works celebrating nature in pastel, sculpture and painting.
FREDERIC BOLOIX FINE ARTS, 351 Leadville Avenue, will show some unique paintings on metal objects by Austrian artist Martin C. Herbst.