“Things are slowly returning to normal for us and I hope for most other organizations,” said Miller. “COVID affected everybody terribly, but the art galleries and performing artists really had it very hard. So things are returning to normal and we’re so grateful for that. Everyone when they come to our events is so grateful to be normal and congregating again.”
Perhaps fitting for the first summer without COVID looming over everything, one of the exhibits features the experience of the pandemic very prominently. Journal of the Plague Years (2020-2023) is the work of Saskatoon artists Dawna Rose and Betsy Rosenwald and chronicles their viewpoint on the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s all related to COVID and their responses to COVID,” said Miller. “They collaborated every day for the past three years and they’ve got hundreds, probably thousands of paintings they’ve done on recycled cardboard as responses to news and events of the day and the crazy things that happened over COVID.”
Miller added they see an increase in traffic during the summer in general. While school groups don’t come through anymore, they do get more tourists and families.
“We get a lot of traffic from people who are going up north to cottages or to camp,” said Miller. “They invariably stop at the Mann Art Gallery on their way up north.”
The third exhibit at the opening, which begins at 7:00 p.m. Thursday, came from two summer interns who curated an exhibit on Prince Albert. They painted a map of Prince Albert, with paintings following along the river of geographic locations within the city.
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On Twitter: @RobMahonPxP
