Gallery #1
White Edge: Susan Bizecki

Picket Fence - Susan Bizecki

Susan Bizecki graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from UBC Okanagan in 2006. She has been actively exhibiting throughout the Okanagan over the last few years as well as pursuing film and stage work. The artist was the recipient of the Operation Campus Enhancement award in 2006.

Artist Statement:

The landscape is white,

That plane once full of unwritten histories

Now carved out of the same edge

Two stories on different sides of the page

But they share the same space

The delicacy and the blankness of my sculptures is an important component to my work. The small details create the signature of each piece. Light and shadow impose three dimensionality where color is not available.

I work with the figure of the house as a symbol of personal history, safety and privacy. There is a relationship that these histories have with each other, each one carved out of the same paper and physically attached, even though they appear afloat on different planes. The house is always new at one stage, and from there layered with the lives of the many inhabitants it may envelope. This dwelling is at times more transparent than others. Sometimes, we see a fraction of the story, sometimes only its container.

Working with this method allows me to build using a material that imposes restrictions, but allows great detail. Patience is necessary to build these forms. Each detail carved out is a part of the whole story, a factor in a new beginning, one that is contained in the safety and privacy of our homes. (Bizecki)

Gallery #2
Time Machine, Earth and Water: Kevin Michael Witzke

Artist Statement:
 
My current series of work looks directly at the concepts and devices involved in time.  With Time Machine I have created a device and a document to investigate time and its markings.  When observing the work I encourage you to become an archaeologist, a scientist, and fortune-teller of the past.  The markings show a history you read on the canvas document. 
 
The markings are made using earth samples from the Okanagan valley.  The samples were collected from found sites in the mountains and valley bottom.  These pigments are integral of the valley we call home; they are fundamental in the creation of this land.  As your eyes meander across canvases, the various time-marks become stories you read; a visual biography of what is Okanagan. (Witzke)

Born in Vernon, BC, Kevin Michael Witzke has spent his lifetime in the Okanagan Valley pursuing and developing his career in fine arts.  Kevin received his Diploma of Fine Arts in 2003, and his Bachelor of Fine Arts at UBC-O in 2007.  Since 2007 he has continued creating in his studio in Kelowna, BC, and showing his work locally and abroad. 

Kevin employs a process-oriented approach to his work.  He thrives on unconventional techniques painting on canvas, paper and other materials.  His techniques are often interwoven with core ideas.  Witzke uses history and ideas of time for core subjects in his work.

Legends often inform us and teach us the perils of bad behavior and the rewards of benevolence.(Witzke)

 If there is an underlying message in Witzke’s work, it is that time has a way of revealing the interconnectedness of humans and the Earth.

A lover of colour, Witzke combines contrasting textures with rich fields of colour on his canvases.  He strives to achieve an underlying energy within his works that he believes exists all around us. 

I am not able to put my finger on it, or state what this energy is exactly.  But the paintings that I am most happy with usually have a certain essence to them.  I want people to view my paintings and be moved emotionally, stop and linger with wonder, sensing that there is something sacred happening inside, and also between themselves and what they are seeing. (Witzke)

NOAA Members Wall Gallery

Artist Biography:
Born 1969 on the Island of Fehmarn/Germany, Barbara Harder-Lutz did not immediately become an artist. As is traditional in rural German communities she started her professional life with an apprenticeship as a pastry chef.
It was rather her move to the U.S.A in 1993 that enabled her to establish her career as an artist. She was encouraged to do so by the people she met and by other artists she encountered in Princeton, NJ and New York City.
Unable to afford the tuition at the art schools, Barbara attended classes as a guest student and honed her skills as a painter in that manner.
Receiving scholarship awards at the Chicago Art Institute and at the Moore School Philadelphia gave further evidence of the artist's talent and motivation in the visual arts. With luck and determination she was able to open a studio in the garment district of New York City.
During the years in the megalopolis of New York Barbara has had various exhibitions in her studio, in galleries and showrooms as well as smaller venues.
New York City offered the artist a wide selection of opportunities as an emerging artist. Manhatten offered the artist a creative challenge. 
Upon her return to Hamburg, the artist continued to dip into different experiences, now meeting Germany as a confident artist. Returning to Europe after living in the U.S for almost ten years proved quite an experience, positive and negative.
After a time-out on the Island of Fehmarn, which lasted more than a year, she decided to leave Europe behind for good and move to the Okanagan Valley to make a home for herself.
I am making my debut in the Vernon Art Community by exhibiting a few sketches of bathers on the beaches of the Baltic Sea, Fehmarn, most of them done in 2008 and 2009.
Incidently this theme, „The Bathers“ (die Badenden) is quite established with some of the biggest names in the modernist art world from the turn of the century.
At the turn of the century and shortly after the human body in the arts was a challenge to the audience and not necessarily taken with benevolence by it.
As is common in Germany when going to the beach, people are much more at ease with their bodies than in contemporary North America. So, if any of the visitors should feel somewhat uncomfortable around these sketches, I
may remind the audience that different cultures do have different sensibilties in that matter. And especially in Scandinavia and Germany the human body is something natural and not
seen as offending.
Barbara Harder-Lutz

Vertigo Window Gallery:
Recent Paintings: Jean MacDougall

Artist Jean MacDougall is in her 6th year as an artist. Her first lessons were with the Palette Pals of Rutland BC. She had been ill prior to taking up painting and found that her health returned "as soon as the oils hit the canvas". Last year, MacDougall had work accepted into her first juried exhibition here at Gallery Vertigo. She is a a member of the North Okanagan Artists Alternative as well as the Okanagan Artists of Canada and the Vernon Community Arts Centre. "I keep improving with the help of other artists." says MacDougall. She thanks all who take the time to view her progress.

Corporeal Fancies - mixed media drawings by Tia McLennan

Kalamalka Vertigo presents these sensitively-executed,  biomorphically-inspired drawings produced while the artist was completing her BFA at the Nova Scotia School of Art and Design. 

About Tia McLennan
Originally from Vancouver and Vancouver Island, Tia McLennan has been studying and producing art for the past 15 years. From 1998-2000 she attended Capilano College University, where she completed a diploma in fine arts as well as attending the Art Institute program in printmaking in 2002-03. She completed her BFA in interdisciplinary studies at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University in 2005. She is currently attending UBC Okanagan, working on an interdisciplinary MFA in the areas of creative writing, visual arts and multi media.

KALAMALKA VERTIGO
All are invited to view the works at Kalamalka Vertigo, located at Vernon's Kalamalka Campus of Okanagan College. The gallery is located just past the college lecture theatre in the main building adjacent to the college office.
"Kalamalka Vertigo" , located at the Kalamalka campus of Okanagan College, represents a joint venture between Gallery Vertigo and Okanagan College. This is the newest incarnation of the ongoing partnership between the two institutions. 

Exhibition Proposals: Please print a copy of our form and send it off to us with the information requested.
A selection committee reviews proposals once a year, usually in the spring.
Contact us for more information.
info@galleryvertigo.com
proposal form and information for exhibitions in gallery #1 and gallery #2
members wall application
window display

Previous Exhibitions:
2010:
UBC Okanagan Students: Architecture Digress - Feb. 9 to Mar.4
School District 22: Incognito - Jan.12 to Feb.5
2009:
Headshots, Wheeltown: Noel Bullock - Oct.15 to Nov.7
Philomena Caroll, Margarita Alejandre, Sookinshoot - Sep.10 to Oct.3
Almost Famous Auction - August 22
Microbial Tales - Arthur Desmarteax and Allison Moore - July 2 to July 25th
Pfannschmidt, Newell and Mace - May 26 to June 23
Heidi Thompson and Stephan Bircher - Apr.21 to May 15
Lucky Number 7: NOAA juried exhibition - Mar.17 to Apr. 9
Social Spectrum: A Group Exhibition by UBC Okanagan Photograpy Students - Feb.10 to Mar.7
Fusion: Fourth Annual High School Exhibition - Jan 13 to Feb 17
2008:
Picasso's Cupboard/ Book Fair - Nov.25 to Dec.13th
not with a Bang, but with and SUV - The 7th Annual NOAA Members Open Exhibition - Oct.7 to Nov.1
the coming night - Jorden and David Doody / Typoportraits - kevin mcpherson eckhoff
Almost Famous Auction - August 17
Ten - Studio Artists - Current Work - July 29 to August 9 / Joanne Sale-Hook:Introduced Species - July 29 to August 17
Katie Brennan - Stasis Strategy / Floribunda - June 23 to July 19
Space (re)Constructed - Miranda Aschenbrenner / Memory/Recall - Suzanne Phillips - May 27 to June 21
March to May - Faith Moosang/Candies - Sabrina Ovesen
Sixth Annual NOAA Members Juried Exhibition - March 18 to April 12
Drawing Conclusions - UBC Okanagan Student Exhibition - Feb.12 to March8
The Wheel: School District #22 High School Students - Jan.15 to Feb.2
2007:
Picasso's Cupboard and Even Dozen
Mellow Yellow - The 6th Annual NOAA Members Open Exhibition - Oct.16 to Nov.10
Look What we Have Done.. Carolina Sanchez de Bustamante / Mutation - Howard Brown - September 11 to October 5
Almost Famous - Ken Jeanotte - August 7 to August 24
Zotz Collective - Kurt Hutterli - July 3 to July 28
Flesh nor Meat - Ila Crawford /All our Ancestors - Tanya Dubick - May 29 to June 23
Spectacles of Intimacy - curated by Lora Carroll - April 24 to May 18
Green - The Fifth Annual NOAA members juried exhibition - March 20 to April 14
Pressing Engagements - UBC Okanagan Printmaking Students - Feb.13 to March 16
Bugs - School District #22 High School Students - Jan.16 to Feb.3
2006:
Picasso's Cupboard, Studio Artists - Nov.21 to Dec.9
Fall Forward - Oct.21 to Nov.10
Helm, Seward, Began - Sept.8 to Oct.6