By Marusia Kaweski with Garry Bradley
The Shurniak Art Gallery in Assiniboia opened a unique exhibition featuring Saskatchewan artist Richard Thatcher on May 6. The exhibit features 18 handpicked works by Thatcher, including 11 original pieces of abstract expressionism and seven representational works.
Currently, Thatcher is devoting most of his art-making time to mixed media abstractions, while continuing his interest in landscape work and a variety of other subjects, including the occasional experimental and surreal piece, or even an evocative or provocative portrait.
This exhibit provides a taste of something for everyone, being aptly named “Eclectic Art”. It features a mixture of styles and sizes including large landscape acrylics, bright multi media expressionist pieces and small portraits. But all of Thatcher’s works feature bright colours. Even “Night Train, Small Town”, which depicts a head-on view of a train entering a small town station under a moonlit sky, displayed a brightness of light and colour.
The exhibit shows several of Thatcher’s landscape works with brilliantly hued skies. “Prairie Field Scene” shows a glorious sunset over a field. While the sun itself is almost gone, its rays take over the canvas, lighting up the sky in brilliant orange, red and deep gold. In this work and another, “Prairie Harvest”, the sky takes up three quarters of the canvas space, a testament to the role of the sky in the Canadian Prairie landscape.
Thatcher’s exhibit also includes pieces like “Rockin’ in the Garden”. This mixed media work shows bold colours and media like gold glitter and shells to create an abstract, emotive work. “The Baroque n’ Roll” is the largest piece in the exhibit. It features a riot of pleasing colours in violets, pinks, turquoise, blues and lime greens along with circles and glitter. And the “Summer Symphony” mimics sound waves floating across the canvas in muted hues. The exhibit runs until Thursday, June 22. Thatcher, who was raised in Saskatchewan, commented on the province’s extraordinary beauty and ability to inspire.
In addition to being an artist, Thatcher is a sociologist, social policy analyst and a non-fiction writer who lives with his wife and best-friend Myrna. The Thatcher family currently resides in Craven, a village located in the Qu’Appelle Valley, 20 miles north of Regina.
