Katie Ohe, Alberta-born ceramic artist and long-time teacher with international credentials in sculpture, was guest speaker at the opening of “Art in the Gallery 3D” on Sun. Sept. 30 in the Western GM Gallery of the Badlands Community Facility.
The show runs to Oct. 28 with a variety of sculptures by 11 Alberta artists. The works were critiqued in appreciative detail by Ohe to an audience of about 30 residents and visitors at the afternoon reception. Her considerable experience, ranging from academic and hands-on studies in Canada, USA and Italy, was illuminating to the attending non-sculptors who could better understand both the heft and the craft of the presented works.
Katie Ohe was born near Peers in northern Alberta in 1937, is married to well-known artist Harry Kiyooka, and they are founders of the Kiyooka Ohe Art Centre in Sprinbank, west of Calgary. Her achievements include 16 public sculpture commissions, 12 solo exhibitions and 25 group exhibitions.
Katherine Yitalo in a 2017 magazine article described her: “If we lived in Japan, we would call her a national living treasure”. It was a great honour to Drumheller that the Alberta Society of Artists and the Alberta Foundation of the Arts sponsored the exhibition and this speaker.
