Stampede art is all about bronze bulls or paintings of cowboys, prairies, foothills and horses, right? Well, mostly. Walking through the cavernous BMO Centre, past the guy selling adjustable beds, you emerge into a calm oasis of art. Most of that art is exactly what you’d expect.
But if you keep going, you come across the kiosk of the Calgary Stampede Artist Ranch Project: Tim Belliveau’s quirky skulls in wood or glass, Michael Markowsky’s swirling paintings of bulls and Herb Sellin’s large colour-splashed canvasses that he described in an interview with Galleries West as “landscape pushed in the direction of the imaginative.”
This is the second year the Stampede has invited contemporary artists out to its Hanna-area ranch to soak in the prairie surroundings and later produce work that diversifies the artistic offerings of the Western Art Show. Placing the contemporary works square in the middle of the displays of soaring eagles, stomping bulls and sun-dappled landscapes is odd. It doesn’t fit and that’s why it’s important.
Grab a corndog, dart past the weird booths selling weird things and have a chat with the artists at the Stampede.
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