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Two Rivers Gallery opens new exhibitions

Betty Kovacic. Water = Life, 2020. Acrylic paint pens, acrylics, copper clips, and Plexi-glass, on salvaged copper sheet. Photo by Eric Johnson

Two Rivers Gallery opens new cxhibitions exploring the profound and complex Relationship between humans and the land

Amber Bracken. From series of Fort Chipewyan, 2024. Courtesy of the Artist.
Dreamers Friday, Feb 7 to Sunday, April 13, 2025

Amber Bracken, the first Canadian woman to receive the World Press Photo prize, focuses her work on socio-political and local-global challenges. Her work explores themes of culture, decolonization, and issues affecting North American Indigenous people, particularly their intergenerational trauma, healing, and ancestral lands. Bracken’s work captures pivotal moments and challenges prevailing narratives, contributing significantly to the understanding of complex issues through visual storytelling. This exhibition showcases over a decade of Amber Bracken’s powerful reportage on environmental and Indigenous issues, capturing moments that traverse a spectrum of themes from alienation to deep connection with the land.

The Road Not Taken
Friday, Feb 7 to Sunday, April 13, 2025

Betty Kovacic’s work explores the poetic and ephemeral realities that connect all life. Her works are a visual manifestation of her philosophy that all beings and elements of the earth are connected.

Using salvaged materials and intricate mixed-media pieces, she explores both the visible and hidden connections of the human condition and humanity’s relationship with the Earth and its inhabitants. Her work creates narratives of human or other life forces that are unseen, forgotten, or ignored. By incorporating images of endangered creatures and symbolic human elements, her work reflects on the fragility of life and the destructive scars left by human negligence, while also suggesting hope for renewal through unity and compassion.

Emily Neufeld’s focus is the environmental and social fallout of Canada’s resource extraction industries, which have historically fueled climate change and conflict. Through large-scale installation inspired by abandoned mining towns, her work critiques the boom-and-bust cycles of capitalism and the environmental devastation they leave behind.

Viewing the mines as a microcosm of Canada, she warns of a more authoritarian future as the result of greed, financial austerity and climate crisis. By considering an alternative social and political structure that is more impervious to collapse, Neufeld questions whether we can draw inspiration from nature’s resilience or if we remain trapped in repeating our destructive cycles.

The featured artists delve into themes of resilience, ecological degradation and the urgency for change in how we interact with the land. They call attention to the pressing need for greater ecological awareness and stewardship, encouraging viewers to reflect on the delicate balance between destruction and renewal in our connection with the planet.

OPENING RECEPTION

Join us at Two Rivers Gallery for our opening reception on Thursday, February 6, at 7:30 p.m. Enjoy an artist talk, light refreshments, cash bar and the opportunity to connect over art and conversation. Come earlier to enjoy the ColdSnap IceJam concert held in the atrium space from 5-6 p.m. prior to the opening reception.

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