Kamloops painter’s career covered at KAG

By MIKE YOUDS

One of the city’s most distinguished and prolific painters will be featured in Kamloops Art Gallery’s main exhibition this summer.

Ted Smith: A Retrospective, which opens June 28, will trace the painter’s evolving practice over a period of more than 50 years. This will be the gallery’s first major show of Smith’s work since 1992, when the gallery was located in the basement of the Kamloops Museum.

Smith graduated from Kam High and went on to attend Vancouver School of Art in 1960. As an older student of 27, he intended to forge a career as a commercial designer, but couldn’t put down his brushes. His style has moved from realistic landscapes to abstract impressions of the landscape that marry colour and form.

The career retrospective dovetails with another exhibition by another well-known B.C. artist, Jack Shadbolt. Shadbolt taught at Vancouver School of Art and had a major influence on Smith.

Jack Shadbolt: Seven Decades of Works on Paper will showcase the addition of 79 works recently donated to KAG’s permanent collection by the SFU Art Gallery. The donation was part of a dispersal of the artist’s work to regional galleries around southern B.C. The works on paper provide an understanding of how Shadbolt contributed to the history of Canadian art. A contemporary of the Group of Seven – he taught and studied with Frederick Varley – Shadbolt died in 1998.

Two other exhibitions of local art coincide with the annual Curator’s Choice exhibition, including work by TRU fine arts grads in The Cube at KAG. Finally, an outpouring by artists and doodlers goes up on the wall of the BMO Open Gallery.

These are works created on the spot at Drink and Draw, regular open gatherings held by KAG at Zack’s Coffees. Drink and Draw continues to meet on third Monday of each month until August from 7-9 p.m. at the downtown coffee bar.