My Journey ~ Redux
january 29th, 2022 - March 12th, 2022
Toni ONley & Project room Gallery
Featured Artist:
Michael Sime
In the spring of 2018 the much loved Dr. Michael Sime was recognized by the Penticton arts community at the annual Penticton and District Community Arts Council’s Arts Awards Gala with their highest honour, the lifetime achievement award for his contributions to the development and support of the arts community here in the South Okanagan. That same year Michael had a wonderful and highly successful exhibition at Mondo Creations on Main Street with many of his works finding new homes in collections across the south Okanagan and beyond.
In the late days of 2019 the Meadowlark Nature Festival reached out to Michael inviting him into an exclusive club as their featured guest artist for the 2020 Festival. In exchange for creating the signature piece that would adorn that year’s festival the work would be reproduced on the poster, program, all the advertising and to top it off the artist would also be given a solo exhibition during the festival at the Penticton Art Gallery. The festival has a long and storied history of featuring some of the best known wildlife artists working in Canada and in January of 2020 Michael suddenly found himself in the company of these much beloved artists including the previous year’s featured artist, Alex Fong from Kelowna.
Sadly the excitement and the prospect of what this opportunity could present would be short lived as the world was quickly becoming overcome by the COVID 19 Pandemic, and by the time March rolled around the reality of the situation could no longer be ignored. By the end of the month the province was in a lockdown and everything was off the table as we waited to see what the future would hold. In quick succession the dominoes started to fall, and with them, one of the hardest hit sectors was the arts with festivals, exhibitions, events, venues, museums and so much more suddenly disappearing off the radar and perhaps changing the cultural landscape for the foreseeable future. Here at the Penticton Art Gallery we continue to feel the impact of the events of the past two years and we are constantly adjusting our programming and changing tack so we can try to stay ahead of the curve in an effort to remain proactive and responsive to the every shifting landscape.
Sadly one of the casualties of the cancelation of the 2020 and 2021 Meadowlark Festival was Michael Sime whose planned exhibition here at the Penticton Art Gallery in 2020 was canceled as quickly as it was announced. In an effort to compensate Michael for the unforeseen loss of this exhibition opportunity we proposed doing an online virtual exhibition. Over the months that followed McKaila Ferguson worked with Michael to create a wonderful online exhibition of his work and a tribute to lifetime’s journey which you can find and explore HERE.
As we work to accommodate all those whose exhibitions we have had to shift over the past two years I have been hoping that we would be able to revisit this exhibition and make good on hosting this exhibition here in the gallery. I am thrilled that we have been able to move things around to allow us to make good on our commitment and to pay tribute to the wonderful work and legacy that constitutes Mike Sime’s artistic journey.
Paul Crawford, Curator
