CALGARY, Alta. — Saskatchewan artist Velma Foster, and Alberta artist Katie Ohe, stood on the cutting edge of printmaking in Calgary circa 1960. Bold, shifting while simultaneously still, almost 'teasing the eye', their printed geometric abstract work brought new life to the Calgary art community over 50 years ago.
And their joint show — with its opening reception on Nov. 25 at the Herringer Kiss Gallery in Calgary — running until the end of the year, marked the reunion of not just artistic pioneers, but of good friends.
Though the exhibition chronicles their early years and their cutting-edge artwork as Alberta University of the Arts graduates from 1960 and 1961, it also chronicles a friendship that has lasted half a lifetime. Both would go on to teach at the Calgary Allied Art Centre, even at one point sharing a house on 17th Avenue in Calgary.
“Over fifty years ago, two young art grads in Calgary were turning heads with their bold geometric 'optical' prints," the curator for the show Mary-Beth Laviolette said in a statement.
"Teasing the eye with colour, movement and above all inventive skill. All done when the making of such art by hand in the city was barely known. This is Sixties art at its hippest.”
The exhibition is connected to the two-year Glenbow exhibition series 'Made in Calgary,' which features a decade-by-decade exploration of Calgary artists active in the city from the 1960s to the 2000s.
At the time, there was little in the way of printmaking facilities in Calgary. In New York, Andy Warhol’s silkscreen images of famous personalities were well-known. In Alberta, Foster, Ohe, and her boyfriend – soon to be husband in 1969 – Harry Kiyooka, with their clear-cut shapes and bold flat colours.
"It was a cross-generational undertaking – almost epic in scale," says the gallery.
Fifty years later following a 2019 visit to the ‘ghost town’ of Bresaylor where Foster has resided since 1978, is this exhibition.
"This was definitely exciting to see our work together because Katie has kept in touch all these years, and is probably my oldest friend that I've known that long because we started at the art college more or less at the same time," Foster told the News-Optimist in an interview on her 85th birthday.
"It's always been good to see [Katie] ... but then to see her so well and up, and happy to see me, that was really nice for me. I enjoyed it."
And Foster said she was pleased to see those pieces chosen for the show by Laviolette, as it's a different work than Foster was used to creating and had originally set the prints aside when she created them.
"I didn't think about them too much because it was just something I was enjoying working on," she said, laughing. Though Foster noted she did sign them at the time so they were hung in the right direction.
"I think it was just the exploration ... and Katie of course came at it from a different way because she was a sculptor first," she said.
As for the exhibition itself, Foster said,
"I was really pleased and appreciative of the help that I help I had from my sister and her family ... to see [my art] in that context and to see some of the people that visited, that was really exciting."
Foster noted that it should have happened a few years ago, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
"I felt lucky to have it happen ... it's been a good life in art," she said.
