Cornucopia III

Cornucopia III
Review by Sophie Ryan

Once a year the Gallery de Boer presents its patrons with a buffet of visual pleasure; a collaboration of artists and images of unimaginable diversity. A chance for any and all viewers to experience art which interests and excites them. Cornucopia provides such an experience by never limiting the walls of the gallery to only a few purposely selected artists or styles.
What Cornucopia truly manifests to the viewers is the potential in every form, technique, process, subject, or medium. Whether you enjoy art for the talent involved in recreating precise details, or the artists’ ability to shape an image from imagination and emotion alone – this show guarantees viewing pleasure for even the most skeptical critic.
From the walls of the exhibit leap spectacular nudes, elegant landscapes, vibrant still-lives, eye-catching abstraction, and everything from whimsical sketches, to the painstaking accuracy of Inuit painting, to photography, to photographic realism, to sculpture. The intrigue is endless.
The many styles and techniques of the artists touched upon by this show radiate from every corner of the gallery and give the viewer an honest chance at appreciating individual pieces. When art is presented in a smorgasbord fashion, each piece is forced to stand alone and challenged to stand out in a sea of talent and spectacle. Therefore, when viewers find a piece which truly speaks to them, they can be sure they enjoy the work for its unique qualities, rather then just picking out the less-appalling piece in a collection which they may not totally appreciate.
While every art piece is spectacular in principle, certain work will either stand out or be passed by in the minds of each viewer, whether they prefer action-packed sports scenes, eclectic still-lives, the wonder of the human form, the movement of vessels in a seascape, or the beauty of nature. Art will remain a subjective experience.
For the ultimate collector or the amateur observer, a variety of one of a kind pieces or limited edition prints have the potential to begin a lavish collection or enhance one already in existence.
From fantasy to realism, photography to abstraction; Cornucopia reveals and celebrates the relentless lack of boundaries, trends, or conformity found only in contemporary art work. In no other decade will we find more freedom of artistic practice and diversity within age-old mediums. At last artists are free to express any concept or idea in any means possible, and instead of being met with ridicule and criticism, are embraced as creative geniuses – breaking free of societies’ ever critical preconceived notions of what constitutes art. We live in the “it’s art because I say it’s art” era, and we express this by allowing today’s artists freedom of expression. We are generally able to date and categorize older works by their style, such as Baroque or Renaissance, but will we ever be able to look back on any one piece of our most current art and say “that must be a ‘2007’”? Not likely.
Art is meant to arouse emotions and tickle the senses, to give us a chance to bask in the light of creativity and indulge in spectacle, and what better opportunity than that presented to us in the form of the Cornucopia exhibit.

January 10, 2008