Craig Cote, Clint Lawrence, Koi Neng Liew, Melissa Johnston, Jessica Plattner, Ian Richmond, Dean Smale and Yulin Wang

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Medicine Hat College opened in 1965 and is celebrating its 60th Anniversary. The Art and Design program is housed within the School of Arts, Science and Education, bringing together fine art practices and applied design in a blended curriculum. The program balances studio courses such as drawing, sculpture, printmaking and painting with digital media, design and interactive technology. This blend of course content brings together a diverse and talented faculty within the applied degree program. The Art and Design faculty possess highly refined skill sets within the fine art and design realms. This exhibition showcases those skills through various visual manifestations such as oil painting, ceramic sculpture, digital design, typeface and historical research.

Craig Cote, Clint Lawrence, Koi Neng Liew, Melissa Johnston, Jessica Plattner, Ian Richmond, Dean Smale and Yulin Wang are presented in this exhibition through various visual articulations. For example, Yulin Wang’s large scale oil painting is centered around a cultural fusion between his Chinese heritage and life on the Canadian prairies. He explains, “My intention was to create works reflecting my unique West and East background, to make sense of the nonsense in an absurd space in a meaningful way”. Ian Richmond’s design practice also explores social and cultural influences, but through typography. Through typeface, Richmond intends to reflect tensions, humor and empathy shaping shared environments. He explains, “Division Ave, examines how local design can bridge ideological divides and embody contradictions that define everyday life in Medicine Hat”.

Dean Smale and Jessica Plattner’s paintings are centered around self-exploration; an autobiographical examination on identity and mortality, while Craig Cote’s practice navigates through an intuitive process, aesthetically inspired by the prairie landscape and bee boxes. Koi Neng Liew continues to examine how popular culture impacts social behaviours, creating menacing ceramic sculptures inspired by the LABUBU phenomenon and Melissa Johnston’s success as designer is displayed in her Medicine Hat Stories series created for The Esplanade for their digital device interactive tours downtown and around the city. Clint Lawrence, the Art and Design Programs historians piece Remembering, Memorializing and Commemorating Métis War Service pays homage to the importance of commemorative memorials. He explains, “Commemorative memorials are essential to the construction of national identities. Nowhere is this more important than for the Métis peoples given the relative invisibility of Métis peoples in Canada’s historical record”.

Through various approaches such as digital design, sculpture, historical research, painting and conceptual typeface, the Medicine Hat College Art and Design faculty exhibition celebrates eight masterful artists, solidifying how their creative abilities enhance Medicine Hat’s arts and cultural community.

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