SAP: Holiday Edition

A curated collection of small works from several local makers through our Supplementary Artists Program

December 1 – December 23, 2018

Woodlands Gallery invites you to explore the SAP: Holiday Edition, a thoughtfully curated collection of small artworks from several local painters and makers through our Supplementary Artists Program. SAP features contemporary emerging artists from Manitoba for a limited engagement, providing them with gallery exposure and building on our mandate to support Canadian artists.

This exhibition features whimsical creatures, colourful abstractions, imaginative landscapes, and incredible technique from artists Kathleen Shellrude, Darci Madlung, Sofia Goswin, and Debra Frances.

Kathleen Shellrude was born in Winnipeg in 1976 and graduated from the University of Winnipeg in 2005. She then taught internationally and worked for the well-being of street involved women. After a lengthy hospitalization in 2015, Shellrude unexpectedly began her career as an artist by filling dozens of art journals in order to work through clinical depression and addiction. Since then she has created hundreds of paintings, experimenting with mixed media, such as resin, bits of paper, and acrylic paint. Her whimsical creatures and dreamlike landscapes offer solace to both Shellrude and viewers. She states “everyone needs compassion, and this collection is either willing to lend that to you or encourage you to gift it to others.”

Darci Madlung grew up in the Rocky Mountains surrounded by artists and nature. This allowed her to connect deeply with art and the natural world, and to explore the spiritual properties that connect them. She moved to the prairies to study environmental design and interior design, and to further explore the relationship between people and their environments. She is inspired by the intersection of the material and the spiritual, and how they connect through abstraction and processes of making. Immersed in the prairies just outside of Winnipeg, Madlung creates paintings using primarily acrylic paint, focusing on colour and form. Recently she has started building frames for her paintings as an extension of her process.

Sofia Goswin is a contemporary artist living and working in Winnipeg. She has been painting with increased intensity for twelve years, finding inspiration in the mundane and the extraordinary. Working with acrylics and mixed media, Goswin uses imagination and bright strokes of colour to depict images of vibrant cities and landcapes where opportunities and possibilities are endless. Her artwork can be found in private collections in Canada, the United States, and Europe.

Debra Frances is a bookbinder and book artist from Winnipeg. She is fascinated by the compact form of the book and how it can house and reflect a wide range of ideas. She is especially drawn to the quality and design of historical bindings and is always working to innovate utilizing contemporary materials. Her recent work uses various forms of wood – handcrafted exotic woods, logs, and driftwood. The books in this collection are a collaboration between herself and close family friend, Tore Vollan. Every detail that goes into Frances’ work is carefully considered and each unique book is a sculptural, yet functional, keepsake.

Come in from the cold and feel invigorated by the warm and bright artworks of our SAP: Holiday Edition. Experience the whimsical imagination of Kathleen Shellrude, Darci Madlung’s kaleidoscopic abstractions, Sofia Goswin’s colourful landscapes, and the precise technique of Debra Frances’ handbound books.