2025 Exhibits
2025 Exhibits – Book Now!
Summary of 2025 Exhibits
Craft in Colour from the Manitoba Craft Council explores the timeless relationship between craft and colour through 20 works, exploring the mesmerizing allure and cultural significance of colour in human creativity and expression.
Residual Effects by Crystal Thorburn is a poignant reflection on the delicate balance of nature, featuring 20 works that highlight the artist’s observations of environmental decline and the impact of herbicides on insects and plants, aiming to raise awareness and appreciation for the preciousness of our environment.
A Show of Hands/À main levée by Rosemarie Péloquin is an intimate exploration of connections and community, showcasing a series of needle-felted portraits of hands that serve as a metaphor for the quiet yet profound actions that bind us together, inviting contemplation, discussion, and storytelling.
The Afterlife by Tim Greig presents a series of 14 genre paintings capturing the leisure activities of family and friends, offering relatable glimpses into everyday life post-retirement, reflecting the artist’s transition and experiences in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and Dauphin, Manitoba.
Craft in Colour |C2 Centre for Craft
c2centreforcraft.ca
number of works: 20
Craft and colour are intrinsically linked. Humans have been making objects with their hands for millennia and figuring out how to apply colour to them for just as long. Why are we so seduced by colour? Why have our ancestors spent so much of their precious time and energy learning how to dye, glaze, paint, and stain colour onto the objects they made for survival or enjoyment?
Craft tells the story of humans through the objects we use, worship, wear, and admire. Artists pull inspiration from the natural world, cutting-edge technology, the motifs of their cultural backgrounds, fantasy worlds, and the playfulness we often leave behind in childhood.
C2 Centre for Craft
The Manitoba Craft Council (MCC) was founded in 1978 as Manitoba’s only not-for-profit arts organization dedicated exclusively to contemporary craft. Our purpose is to promote, develop and advocate for contemporary craft and its makers in Manitoba. For over 45 years, the organization has worked to ensure that contemporary craft and the artists who produce it are supported, recognized and celebrated for their contribution to the cultural and economic life of Manitoba.
Participating Artists
Candace Lipishak, Cathie Ugrin, Ingrid Lincoln, June Derksen, Karen Hare, Karen Kerr, Karen Schmidt Humiski, Keith Oliver, Kelli Rey, LeeAnne Penner, Michino Tsuboi, Paul Robles, Rachael Kroeker, Sage Wednesday, Susan Styrchak, Theresa Shaw, Tijen Roshko, Toluwalope Toludare, Tricia Brock, and Vi Houssin
Residual Effects| Crystal Thorburn
crystalthorburn.com
number of works: 20
Crystal Thorburn’s rural life has deepened her awareness of the changing seasons on the prairies. Her work draws direct inspiration from observing and studying these seasonal transitions throughout the year, using sketches, plein air studies, and photographs as references.
After returning to her family farm after 30 years, she noticed a significant decline in the number of insects, such as crickets, dragonflies, and fuzzy caterpillars, which had been abundant during her childhood. Through this body of work, she adopts a ground-level perspective, connecting with nature and emphasizing the details and small moments of everyday life that are often overlooked. As an organic farmer and gardener, successfully practicing regenerative growing methods without the use of chemicals, she seeks to raise awareness about the environmental impact of herbicides, specifically neonicotinoids and glyphosate, on insects and plants. Her series aims to shed light on these effects through the use of light and leaf mutations.
Crystal incorporates natural leaves as a constant element in her art, using two approaches to symbolize the relationships between insects, plants, and humans: mixed media on yupo paper framed in a lightbox, and mixed media encaustic on cradled wood panels.
Artist Biography
Crystal’s art has been exhibited in numerous local, regional, and provincial group and solo shows across various communities in the province. In addition to her exhibitions, she has taught acrylic, watercolor, and sketching classes, which have been an integral part of her artistic journey. In 2022, in collaboration with the Shurniak Art Gallery, she was awarded the Artist in Communities Project grant, leading workshops and creating a community public art sculpture of a Monarch butterfly.
Funding for the creation and distribution of this exhibition was made possible by the support of Sk Arts through the Microgrant Program .
A Show of Hands/À main levée | Rosemarie Péloquin
rosemariepeloquin.ca
number of works: TBD
This is a continuation of my musings on hands and connections that started at an artist residency in Alberta and developed over the pandemic lockdowns. The original 3D works for A Show of Hands have been shown in Killarney and will be in Portage la Prairie in March 2023. This smaller show I am proposing will include a series of mostly 2D needle-felted portraits of Hands.
It is about connections between individuals, family members, their communities, and their environment. It centres around the actions of ordinary people. It is an invitation to individual contemplation, to discussion and sharing of stories.
The material is wool, mostly local heritage breeds. It speaks to a connection with the earth and with the community and the people who live and work there.
The act of needle-felting is as important as the medium – the simple, long, quiet, meditative process is, to me, a metaphor for the many small actions, of quiet seemingly insignificant work done over a long period of time that create connections that make up the fabric of our lives and communities.
Biography
ROSEMARIE PÉLOQUIN is a franco-manitoban artist who sculpts wool. Her portraits and vignettes are expressions of moments in time that speak to our shared humanity. She sculpts faces and hands with her barbed wands, teasing the fibres, coaxing them to reveal the character within, presenting a new image of the fibre and giving it a new voice.
Her work has been featured in video-reportages on Radio Canada, TVA and TFO, has appeared in international magazines, Surface Design (US), Fiber Art Now (US), Book Arts Canada and Textile Forum (AUD), and has shown in exhibitions in Manitoba, Alberta, Ontario and B.C.
In May 2022, she had the honour of presenting her life-sized commissioned wool busts of HM Queen Elizabeth and HRH the Prince of Wales during the Royal visit to Canada.
Rosemarie teaches 2D and 3D needle-felting to all ages, offers art talks to engage people with the art and works with artists to nourish confidence and creativity.
The Afterlife | Tim Greig
timgreig.com
number of works: 27
This is a series of people-themed acrylic paintings on canvas or board. The quest for leisure and or meditative moments either post-retirement or post-workday or week is what the series is about.
Biography
Obtaining a BFA and Ed cert at the University of Manitoba in the late 70s, I taught art at middle schools in Saskatchewan through the early 80s. While I have pursued art for six decades, a move to Dauphin, Manitoba in the early 00s sparked a renewed interest and pursuit of art as a member of the Dauphin Art Group.
