Latitude 53 Contemporary Visual Culture

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Akimbo Hit List: Megan Bertagnolli

Our current Writer in Residence, Megan Bertagnolli, is featured today on Akimbo’s Hit List—talking about five of her favourite things: Running, Camembert, The Royal Bison Craft & Art Fair, Gothic Cathedrals, and local artist Alexa Mietz, who she wrote about this week and who will also be featured in the Schmoozy silent auction next week. Go take a look!

mmm…. tasty!

This week I had the pleasure of seeing Alexa Mietz’s exhibition “TASTY” at the University of Alberta’s FAB Gallery.

Drawing inspiration from an eclectic array of sources including the rich foliage patterns of William Morris, the enigmatic shadow boxes of Joseph Cornell, and the decorative wall niches she encountered while visiting the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, Alexa creates visual experiences that elicit wonder. It also helps that the works contain a healthy amount of glitter, rhinestones and iridescent ceramic figurines (craft materials to fall in love with). Through her inclusion of kitsch, found objects and fingernails, this current body of work is at once magnetic and abject, while raising questions about class and taste. (The photos of these works simply don’t do them justice. They shimmer and are far more intricate in person…)

Easy Breezy, 2011

Back up a second….fingernails? Take a closer look at Easy Breezy

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