The art gallery is housing a prehistoric exhibit that will take people back through millions of years of Saskatchewan's history.
A skeletal cast of a mosasaur, about 32 feet in length, dominates Gallery 1 at the Estevan Art Gallery and Museum. Entitled Hunter of the Prairie Sea, this exhibit showcases a creature found near Rush Lake, Saskatchewan in 1995 that lived about 70 million years ago. An opening reception was held for the exhibit on Jan. 19.
Amber Andersen, EAGM curator, said exhibits like this one complete the gallery's mandate, which is that they are a museum as well. She noted that their goal is to give people an experience of "history and heritage," as well as one that explores the creative arts. The fossils are not originals, but the skeleton is instead a cast of the fossilized bones.
While the mosasaur may be considered a dinosaur, it is in fact a marine lizard because its habitat was under water. There was a western interior seaway that divided North America in half from north to south at the time this creature swam the seas, so discovering its fossils in Saskatchewan near no particularly large body of water is of no surprise.
The creature sports two sets of teeth, with an interior jaw, and hangs in Gallery 1 above a series of panels that include information about the mosasaur, as well as facts about what the environment might have been like during its time.
The exhibit includes the fossilized remains of the mosasaur's final meal. Because of a double-hinged jaw, similar to that of a snake, it was able to swallow its meals mostly whole.
The exhibit opened on Dec. 21 after a brief delay while the gallery was being equipped with new track lighting, said Andersen.
The exhibit is sponsored and organized by the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, and the creature was brought to Estevan in six large boxes, and it was then assembled in large blocks. The exhibit has been moving around primarily small centres, and Andersen noted that Estevan is the largest city the mosasaur has appeared in.
Also noted at Thursday's reception was the closing of Twyla Exner's exhibit Entangled, which ran until Jan. 21. The former Estevan artist's work has been on tour around the province before stopping in the Energy City, and Andersen said it was interesting for many people to see the pieces of her exhibit because it was some of her older work. For those who have seen her more recent pieces, it might have been neat to see her earlier work, Andersen said.
Andersen called what was on display very "labour-intensive" work by Exner.
The next artist reception will be held Thursday night at 7 o'clock with the opening for Gladys Wozny Siemens and her sculptural reliefs.
