Â鶹´«Ã½AV

By Michael Brokop

Gallery Coordinator

ARC Creative Studios is a collaboration of 13 artists' working studios and an art gallery. This year is the second year of the group's formation in its current location on 1102-101st Street in North Battleford.  

The current summer exhibition features work from the majority of ARC members. Showcased in this article for this week are Kamila Badura and Barb O'Neil.  

Kamila Badura, who was born in Warsaw, has a passion to create works that bring colour to play. In her home country of Poland, materials were hard to find, let alone to buy. Using ingenuity, she used what was at hand – natural plants and vegetables to generate her colours and found objects such as rocks, driftwood, used paper, egg shells and seeds were used in her creations. Her current work reflects this eclectic assortment of materials. 

She says, "I find inspiration in everything around me."

Her current goal is to inspire others to pursue their artistic paths through the art classes she has offered to various schools in North Battleford and through the ARC art programs. Art is her secret garden where imagination has no boundaries.  

Barb O'Neil, on the other hand, has been working with layers of texture using different acrylic mediums and layers of paint in her current work. All the works on display started with a layer of moulding paste applied quickly to the canvas and texture related using various hand tools and stencils.  As mediums dry, they in themselves create textures on the canvases. O'Neil finds this new creative play of process and technical applications of mediums  inspires her works. 

Both artists persue an abstract perspective and enjoy the surfaces and mediums to invigorate their fury of creation.

These two artist are joined at ARC by Juanita Aucamp, Mary Ann Baxter, Michael Brokop, Sherron Burns, Joseph Campbell, Chris Hodge, Karen Kowalski, Brenda Lamb, Jesse Navarro, Rosemarie Stadnyk and Joanne Rivers-Wing. The gallery and artist studio working spaces are available for viewing on Fridays from noon until 4 p.m. The gallery may be open when artists are working in their studio spaces and individuals are encouraged to knock on the front door for an opportunity to visit or contact one of the artists and arrange a time to visit them.