St. Marys Station Gallery displays first art exhibition in virtual gallery – The Beacon Herald

Though it remains closed to the public amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the St. Marys Station Gallery is still offering art lovers the chance to enjoy the work of local artists through its new virtual gallery.

This week, the station gallery launched its first of several planned exhibitions on its website – a series of watercolour paintings by London artist Joanne Vegso.

“It was really sad because I have artists who have spent quite a bit of money. I have one artist in particular who spent quite a bit of money having her work framed for this exhibition, and it was all delivered to the gallery when I had to close the gallery (in March),” curator Cameron Porteous said.

“I felt really bad for her, but she took it on the chin and I told her that I’d be remounting the exhibitions next year – it would not go to waste. It was my wife actually, when I was telling her these stories about the (exhibitions) I’m cancelling, … she said, ‘Why don’t you do a virtual gallery?’”

So after getting permission from the artists who had been scheduled for exhibitions at the gallery over the next several months, Porteous asked gallery assistant Sylvie Verwaayen to begin preparing and uploading high-resolution photos of the pieces that would have gone on display to the gallery’s website.

For the first exhibition, 26 photos of Vegso’s work are now available for perusal at stmarysstationgallery.ca/joanne-vegso-art-gallery-2020.

“Her work is charming. It’s absolutely wonderful,” Porteous said. “In fact, in looking at it, I hope people see that it’s not just watercolour still lifes. There’s an exploration there that possibly even goes back to something along the lines of the craftsman period where these guys were designing floral things into wallpapers … decorative ironwork and that using natural subjects. Her work has that kind of feel to it.”

Working with the artists to collect photos of their pieces, Porteous said the gallery currently has virtual exhibitions planned until July, but he hopes to continue the virtual gallery experiment until pandemic restrictions are lifted – and potentially even beyond that.

“We’re hoping that it’s successful because, if it is successful, we’ll keep it up as part of the gallery’s endeavours,” Porteous said. “Why not try to reach more people in other places?”

Since, under normal circumstances, the station gallery does not charge admission to guests, the virtual exhibitions will be offered through its website free of charge. However, because the gallery generates most of its revenue from commissions off the sale of exhibiting artists’ work, Porteous said he will continue connecting the artists with anyone who expresses interest in purchasing the pieces displayed online.

For more information on purchasing, call Porteous at 416-523-8899.

gsimmons@postmedia.com