PRIDE OF PLACE

Art chronicles Canada in transition

Each painting tells a story in Heather Cline’s Quiet Stories art exhibition. More specifically, it’s an individual’s story about a Canadian place.

In the decade prior to Canada 150, Cline worked to collect personal stories from across the country, resulting in more than 60 paintings that focused on place.

Each province is represented in the exhibition that opened Thursday in Regina.

“There’s stories from the Maritimes, there’s stories from the Far North, there’s stories from people who came back to Canada from various locations,” said Cline, who found common themes in the stories over time.

She interviewed people as young as five and as old as 92, with audio recordings accompanying the paintings.

The images range from dirt roads in hilly interior B.C. to 1950s bungalows to a local confectionary to a prairie landscape.

“It’s very interesting to hear the difference, not only in the subject matter, but in how the people speak and in how they relate their stories depending on their age and their background,” said Cline, who lives in Regina.

“It made me more open to not having specific expectations of someone, because sometimes the most surprising people told you a story that you just didn’t think would go with them.”

Further, “It was really interesting how people’s personal stories started to point to larger issues.”

For Quiet Stories, Cline spent time in Oshawa, Ont., Inglis, Man., Vernon and Kelowna, B.C., and Regina, Moose Jaw and Swift Current.

“Oddly, it seemed like everywhere I went, and maybe this is just the nature of our times, but a lot of the communities were in some kind of transition,” said Cline.

“The agricultural communities were really facing big changes in their population, in farming practice, but so were the interior B.C. locations, with the influx of new arrivals, people retiring to the communities. … Oshawa especially to this transition from this real history of car culture to trying to really reinvent themselves.”

Cline’s works are on now display in two Regina galleries, because they wouldn’t fit into just one.

Even still, not every piece is being showcased.

Quiet Stories is on now through Feb. 24 at Slate Fine Art Gallery, 2078 Halifax St.

Part two of the exhibition opens Saturday at the Dunlop Art Gallery (Sherwood Branch), 6121 Rochdale Blvd., and is on through March 14.

Cline is hosting an opening reception at Slate on Thursday evening, 5 p.m.-8 p.m.

MICHAEL BELL Artist Heather Cline reached out to people across Canada to get inspiration for her exhibition Quiet Stories, which features more than 60 paintings. Part one of the exhibit opened Thursday at Slate Fine Art Gallery, with the second part opening...