Exhibit with six local artists at Casa

Casa is presenting six new exhibitions from six local artists who have focused on forms of history from their own perspective and in a unique way.

The exhibits open today and showcase work from artists, David Hoffos, Katie Bruce, Angeline Simon, Anneli Janssens, Gene Brack and John MacDonald.

A local artist and print maker, Bruce has been practising her craft for eight years. Her exhibit, called “Unsaid Unseen,” will feature personal letters she has written to people but has never shown to them. The letters are sentimental to Bruce, and her inspiration for the project was to get those conversations out on paper as a therapeutic release for her.

She said they are to be a gentle confrontation of work, confessing words that are left unsaid, and things that are meant to be read but aren’t. The papers are folded, manipulated and framed to not clearly reveal what they are about, leaving a sense of mystery behind the exhibit.

“The intended recipient of those words isn’t necessarily someone that’s ever going to be seeing these letters,” said Bruce. “The idea of refusing those words to a viewer who maybe thinks they’re entitled to some capacity to that intimacy of reading what another person has written for somebody else.”

Simon will have hand-cut historical photos of Lethbridge’s architecture assembled in 3D form to give the images more life for the viewer.

Simon’s exhibit “Gently Passing By” focuses on the downtown core buildings she’s familiar with, admires and passes by daily.

She created a combination of present-day photos that were taken by her and gathered photos from the Galt Museum & Archives to bring a reflection from the past dating to the late 1800s and mid 1900s.

She wanted to eliminate anything distracting such as signs and current building names because she wanted to focus on the architecture and have her work represent a reflection of the past and present.

“I think it’s meaningful because this is like home to me. Lethbridge is home and this is my reflection of that,” said Simon.

Casa curator Darcy Logan thought it would be interesting to build the main floor exhibitions thematically, in a sense that they all deal with the reproduction of images, and the manipulation of images by hand.

He hopes audiences will be engaged on an aesthetic level where they can reflect on the quality of work that is being produced by local artists.

“I think it’s important for the community to come out and help celebrate what the people produce in culture here in the community, and what they’re capable of,” said Logan. The exhibit will run until Feb. 16. Meanwhile every January artists are recognized through the Month of the Artist in Alberta. This month-long celebration values the contributions artists make to Alberta socially and economically.

Alberta has become the first province to dedicate a month to artists.

The Month of the Artist is one way the Government of Alberta is helping to raise awareness about Alberta’s artists and to celebrate their accomplishments.

To find out more information about artists’ events and how to participate, visit