Gallery 1C03 is pleased to present a new exhibition by respected Winnipeg artist Don Reichert. ON THE ROCKS features Reichert’s most recent digital prints, a medium with which he has been immersed for the last few years. Reichert is best known for his large-scale abstract paintings of Canadian landscapes, consisting of colour, motion and intuitive calligraphic gestures. Of his newer work, Reichert says, “during the last couple of years [while] exploring digital photography, one of my main pursuits has been the production of images that would function to honour nature in a manner that would encourage aesthetic contemplation.”
The digitized images produced by Reichert are a new way of exploring the landscape that he has been painting for years. Photographs are manipulated by reversing, repeating, mirroring and rotating the images to create a kaleidoscope of natural beauty. A stroke of paint to highlight a certain feature of a work creates a Zen-like experience for the viewer. The colours are of a wild landscape: oranges, rusts, grays and pinks, multiple hues of lichens and the varieties of greens are all reflected in the streams and lakes that make up the composite of his pieces.
A graduate of the BFA program at the University of Manitoba, Don Reichert also attended the Instituto Allende of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico and has been a practicing artist for more than five decades. Reichert has exhibited his paintings in numerous exhibitions throughout Canada and internationally, including several solo and group shows at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. His most recent solo exhibitions include Bridge Reconstructions at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown, PEI in 2005 and Nature Morph at Winnipeg’s Franco-Manitoban Cultural Centre in 2006, which was a continuation of a 2005 exhibit at the Art Gallery of the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. Reichert’s art can be found in the collections of many major public galleries and university galleries across the country, including the National Gallery of Canada. He has received various awards for his art, including grants from the Manitoba Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. Reichert taught painting at the University of Manitoba’s School of Art at from 1964 to 1988, as well as summer sessions there and at Emily Carr College of Art and Design in 1979 and Banff Centre for the Arts in 1974. He led several painting workshops at Mount Allison University in the early-1980s.
ON THE ROCKS opens to the public on Thursday, January 18 from 4 - 6 p.m. and continues until February 17. Reichert will give a lecture in Gallery 1C03 on Friday, January 19 at 12:30 p.m. Gallery hours are Monday - Friday, noon - 4 p.m. and Saturday, 1 - 4 p.m.
 Rising, 2006, 36 x 24 in., Inkjet on Paper |
 Small Miracles, 2006, 29 x 38 in., Inkjet on Paper |
For more information contact University Art Curator Jennifer Gibson at 204.786.9253 or j.gibson@uwinnipeg.ca.