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Interior artists explore pipeline issues creatively

The first show at the Station House Gallery for 2013 can best be described as eclectic.
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Brent Morton performs during the opening

The first show at the Station House Gallery for 2013 can best be described as eclectic.

Downstairs is a splash of colour featuring the work of 22 artists from the Interior of British Columbia, from the Kootenays to the Peace River to the Bulkley Valley, in a show titled 2Pro-gress.

The bulk of the artists are from the Cariboo. Upstairs it’s all about kids.

Station House curator and exhibition coordinator, Beth Holden commissioned the 2Pro-gress show last April, with a call to artists throughout the province.

“We got a huge response,” Holden says. The theme of the show, asked artists to examine the concept of progress in light of the recent controversy brought forward by the Enbridge hearings.

“We asked the artists to tell us what progress meant to them, and people responded identifying meaningful things happening to them and their communities.”

The Station House Gallery and Island Mountain Arts in Wells partnered with this show, with IMA first featuring it during the ArtsWells music festival last July and August.

“It’s cool to see how different artists react using different media in different ways,” Holden says. “By seeing the pieces alone and collectively you get a real sense of what the artists are trying to say.”

Adding ambience to the Feb. 7 opening was the accordion playing of Erica Nitchie and guitar/vocals of Brent Morton.

The Upper Gallery belongs to the kids. It features the work of 17 young artists between the ages of five-and-a-half to 12 years old who participated in last summer’s Station House Gallery art classes taught by Kathryn Steen. More on that story Thursday in the Tribune.

Station House Gallery curator Beth Holden, says the February show is just the first of a great slate of exhibitions scheduled for 2013.