EXHIBITION

WHAT: Derelict

WHERE: Arnica Artist Run Centre, Old Courthouse, 7 W. Seymour St.

WHEN: Continues until Feb. 27. Hours: Tuesday to Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Deserted. Abandoned. Neglected.

Flotsam, jetsam and irresponsible behaviour — some of it shameful blight not generally encountered in an art exhibition — are contained in Derelict, a juried group show at Arnica Artist Run Centre.

Local artists were asked to respond to the theme, a subject sometimes used to prime the pump of creative interpretation. In this case participants were given free rein. Some artists couldn’t resist the opportunity to include social and political commentary.

Local photographer John Russell was the precipitant for the idea, said Stephanie Farrell, head of programming for the Arnica Artist Run Centre Society.

Farrell saw Russell’s photographic sardonic series of prints depicting waste in natural landscapes and suggested the idea of a derelict show. Bauhaus in Batchelor Hills, for example, shows the remnants of a stylish couch illegally dumped amid the sagebrush.

“These really caught my eye.”

Russell’s images evoke a range of emotions, from humour to cynicism to outrage. Who does this? Why?

“The hills around Kamloops are his favourite subject,” Farrell said.

TRU art instructor Alan Brandoli contributed wall-mounted sculptures of found objects, while Royden Josephson presents abstracts of high rises.

In her acrylic on canvas, Legally, painter Libby Denbigh looks at the 2010 Games, using a child-like or naïve style to question whether they represent a dereliction of social and political responsibility.

Elaine Sedgman is more direct with her installation, Pantsed, a mixed-media sculpture comprised of an oil drum spewing audiotape into a pair of pants labelled Made in Canada. The artist was obviously among those embarrassed by the stand taken by the Canadian government at the recent UN Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen. This is dereliction interpreted on a global scale but not without a sense of humour.

“This is a direct reference to the Copenhagen (climate change) summit, because Canada literally got caught with its pants down,” Farrell said.

On a representational level, Charlene Brady of Clearwater literally offers a hand, a graphite depiction of one.

“This represents things not used,” Farrell said. “She’s analogizing derelict to relationships. No matter how perfect we want them to be, something’s not quite right.”