Heather Buchanan: Eating 

We are excited to announce that the TREX art exhibit entitled “Eating” and featuring acrylic paintings on canvas by Calgary artist Heather Buchanan has arrived at the Gibbons Library! 

From the catalogue: 

“Heather Buchanan is an artist from Calgary who has painted realistic renditions of famous people in this exhibition. The use of pop culture imagery in Eating stems from a desire to use painting as a vehicle for human connection. We connect with objects and characters through the fiction of the screen. Dramatic scenes elicit real human emotion because they capture and isolate the truth of the matter; we can empathize with the scenarios in which the characters are placed. For better or worse, we identify with characters in pop culture, unconsciously shaping our understanding of the media-saturated world. 

Consumption, or “eating” has a double meaning when it comes to pop culture. We consume images in film and television, and they become part of our identity. Consuming food can be a means for sustenance or comfort, whereas our everyday consumption of media culture has other implications. 

When we look at each painting we see the cultural landscape of the time in which it was produced from the 1990s to the 2000s to today. Food can mean friendship, comfort, hedonism, rebellion, weakness or the release of tension in an awkward moment. How does our consumption of media culture, through film and television, shape our own identity and understanding of the world around us?” 

The exhibit is curated by Todd Schaber at the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie.

The exhibit features 15 works of art and an interpretive guide and may be viewed at the Library premise anytime during our opening hours. The artworks will be on display from 21 July to 26 August. 

You can view the exhibition guide here.

To learn more about the TREX program, view the webpage at the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.