This year’s Insights Juried Exhibition of Fine Arts may have been the smoothest decision yet, according to an Elora Arts Council official.
The Insights exhibition is for local artists from the counties of Wellington, Dufferin, Grey, Huron and Perth and the City of Guelph and runs until Sept. 7.
The exhibition received 306 submissions this year and the three jurors whittled the number down to 65 after their very first independent assessments of the pieces they felt strongly about, said Elora Arts Council Insights committee chair Jacqueline Tait.
“The stuff that they agreed on, independently, was all moved to one end of the room and I think they were stunned when they stepped back and realized they had their show.
“It is the most coherent, the strongest Insights show I have ever seen,” she said. “It was just one of those magical years.”
The jurors for this year were Ron Shuebrook, Dr. Ilse Gassinger and Tom Smart, all of whom are well rounded in their field and look at every medium as equally valid art, Tait explained.
Each year the Insights exhibition has three different jurors, usually recommended from previously jurors, Tait said. It’s the constant refresh and change of those responsible for choosing the show that ensures no two years will be the same and there will always be different themes and different art chosen.
Of the 65 pieces chosen for the show, Tait said the jurors unanimously decided on the winners of eight awards.
This year, a Wellington County resident took the second highest honour, winning the Ellen Langlands Memorial Award.
Richard Pilon, 56, of Eden Mills, created Les Effacements with coloured pencil on rag paper to win his second Langlands award and fourth award from Insights.
Pilon began drawing again in the mid-1980s after taking art throughout high school.
“Back in ’82 when I was unemployed I was getting rather bored so I picked it up again,” he explained. “There were these coloured pencils hanging around and I haven’t looked back since.”
One of Pilon’s signature features of his art is a size limitation. He only works in squares and for the past while the squares have been seven-inch by seven-inch sheets with a white mat and a black wooden frame.
“It sort of allows me freedom to explore the contents of what it is that I want to draw as opposed to working in various sizes or larger pieces,” he said. “It’s set in my mind that this is the way that I want to work in that particular size and it’s just up to me to fill that seven by seven square piece of paper with interesting designs and ideas.”
Pilon’s inspiration for Les Effacements came to him at work when he saw an auto parts cardboard divider that folded almost flat when picked up.
“So I basically just drew it and I think what I work with the most is the background, where the light was coming from and where the shadows were, it gave it that see-through quality to it,” he said.
However, he said the true meaning of the work didn’t come to him until after it was completed.
“I thought ‘why don’t I do the memory box’ and then just leave them empty, let people put what they want using their imagination,” he said. And for him it’s about his mother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s.
“My mom passed away a number of years ago from Alzheimer’s and I think it sort of all came together after that,” he said. “Les Effacements, meaning the erasers in English and it’s just memories that disappear one by one from the affects of Alzheimer’s.”
Two other exhibitionists from Wellington County also won awards. Sophie Hogan from Elora won the photography award for her piece Night Door, a digital print, and Anastasia McEwen from Fergus won the works on paper award for her piece If I Were Joyce Carol Oates, charcoal and chalk pastel on paper.
The other winners were all from Guelph and include:
– Marilyn Clarke won the highest honour the Insights award and the people’s choice;
– Fraser Forsythe who won the Elora Arts Council award;
– Grazyna Adamska won the painting award; and
– Sonia Bukata won the material arts award.
