Mini Galleries
The Northeast Mini Galleries Public Art Program includes 13 mini galleries, including 10 located at different community associations and three located downtown inside the Municipal Building’s atrium.
The mini galleries feature 39 artists throughout the year — each exhibition showcases 13 local artists selected by a local curator for a four-month period.
New artworks continue to be on display and are being managed by the City of Calgary Public Art's partner in art stewardship, Calgary Arts Development.
The 2023 mini galleries were curated by Katrina Ali and Morgan Black. You can learn more about them below.
Katrina Ali
Katrina Ali has a BA, Spanish major from UBC, Vancouver. She is fluent in French and Spanish and is deeply inspired by diversity. Following graduation from university, she taught English in the Galapagos Islands and Ecuador until she recently returned to Calgary, her native city. Katrina is the co-founder of Small Space Gallery which offered a humble, curated art-centered space to a wide variety of local creatives from March 2018 to April 2020 in Kensington, Calgary. Currently, Katrina is a Communications Specialist for The Knowledge Society, as well as offers art curation/advisory services. She is passionate about the arts and the urban development movement in the city of Calgary and wishes to contribute to this movement in a meaningful and proactive way.
Morgan Black
Morgan Black is a Ts’kw’aylaxw First Nations multi-disciplinary artist and curator residing in Mohkinstsis on Treaty 7 territory. Her/their practice includes exploring Indigenous identity through relationship to materials, sustainability, the senses, time and place, while drawing inspiration from the land. Her curatorial practice involves approaching the role from a decolonial lens that empowers diverse/marginalized artists to take up space in the contemporary fine arts world. Her/their methodology privileges visibility, representation, and respect that honours artists and their visions.
January to April 2023 mini gallery exhibits
Title: Hunza Valley (Northern Pakistan)
Location: 2409 50 St NE
Year: 2022
Artist: Afshan Khan
Bio: I am a visual artist from Alberta. It's a beautiful province with lovely landscapes and breathtaking mountainous views, which keeps me motivated. I am inspired by nature and imagination. I like creating colourful textured work based on impressionism and abstract. My medium of choice are oil and acrylics. I am especially inspired by Vincent Van Gogh, and Claude Monet's works.
I am very enthusiastic to share my passion of art with others and hope that it can spark curiosity and inspiration for the observer.
Title: The Bridges & Tom Campbell's Hill
Location: 520 27 Ave NE
Year: 2023
Artist: Andrea Lau
Bio: I graduated from OCAD University in 2006 with a print major. The time I spent in the studio provided a framework for my current growth, perspective and creation of artwork. Inspiration for my current artwork is based on memory, nature, flux of natural environments and relationships.
Title: Come Over to My House
Location: 1248 Livingston Way NE
Year: 2022/2023
Artist: Leah Petrucci
Bio: Leah is a glass artist with a focus on sculptural work. Born and raised in Calgary, she earned a BFA in Glass from the Alberta University of Arts and continues to practice in her home city. She works mainly in hot glass, however, enjoys the diversity and challenge of working with other material processes as well.
Leah cites “Home” as an important influence throughout her life and work. A strong sense of family has influenced her art practice, with a particular emphasis on the literal and abstract concept of childhood memories. Play, pattern and colour are embedded into her work to evoke memories of toys, games, and a childlike sense of fun. Her work often seeks the balance between youthful whimsy and the deep roots of family and place.
Moving forward, Leah is enthusiastic about exploring strategies that carry messages and embody experiences to create a more interactive experience between the work and audience. She hopes that new relationships emerge with this fusion of interactivity and art, where the audience is “doing” rather than just “admiring.” Leah’s goal is to provide an opportunity for people to come together, interact with the art, feel a sense of place and “home,” and enjoy a moment of fun and youthful play during the day.
Title: Wings of Hope
Location: 167 Templegreen Rd NE
Year: 2023
Artist: Estefania Saldarriaga
Bio: I am a multidisciplinary artist born and raised in Colombia and living in Canada for the last 15 years.
May to August 2023 mini gallery exhibits
Title: Too White for the Reds, Too Red for the Whites
Location: 95 Falshire Dr NE
Year: 2022
Artist: Joshua McDougall
Bio: My name is Joshua McDougall, also known as The Chief Called Saint. My artist journey began when I was a young child. I was never a popular kid and there was a sizable age gap between my brothers and I. Furthermore, with being one of the only kids of Indigenous descent in my schools growing up I always felt isolated and alone. As such I turned to drawing my favorite cartoons and making up my own stories. Ever since then I have always turned to art to escape to my own little worlds. I did everything from doodling in the margins of my notebooks to entire days spent dedicated to achieving the perfect blend of colors, shading and composition so I could put the image in my head onto paper, canvas or screen. I have worked in a variety of mediums, including drawing, watercolor and acrylic painting, mixed media, charcoal, digital painting and I have even made some music. Not everything has been perfect and I’ve only really been good at some of the mediums I’ve worked in, but the important thing to me and the reason I do what I do is just creating and exploring new ways to outdo myself through constant improvement as well as having some kind of message to communicate through my compositions. A lot of my work, like most people’s, focuses on my own internalized feelings as well as reflections of my struggles and experiences. As such, my artworks are often reflections of what it felt like growing up as an Indigenous kid in the city. Far from home and family and too young to hang out with my brothers while my parents were constantly working, I often felt very isolated and found a solid escape through my art. I have always loved to just throw on a record or put my headphones in and lose myself for hours in a piece. It’s almost a spiritual experience to me to take something from just being a thought in my head all the way to a fully completed composition and knowing it came from my mind. While I have talked a lot about how art has been an escape, it’s become more than that. It’s a habit and a coping mechanism. It’s something I can do to calm myself down when my anxieties are getting the best of me. It’s my greatest form of communication and lets me say what I want to say. Whether it’s something I’ve written, be it a story or rap or poetry or something in the visual medium, art has truly opened up doors for me and helped me connect to people in a way I was never able to when I was growing up. This was just a little bit about me and what art and being an artist means to me.
Peace.
Title: n/a
Location: 167 Templegreen Rd NE
Year: 2021
Artist: Ralynne Mercredi
Bio: My name is Ralynne Mercredi, and I am a bookkeeper by trade. Art, in all it's many forms has always held an interest for me. Occasionally, I also do photography, but painting mandalas has given a sense of peace and satisfaction that photos do not.
Title: Telemark Troll
Location: 6021 Madigan Dr NE
Year: 2020
Artist: Arden Neustaedter
Bio: I am very involved in my Norwegian culture. I teach our traditional folk dancing to adults and children and I have taken my folkdance group to Norway several times competing in this tradition. I also do several of our traditional cultural arts. I do perlbroideri, (which is beading that we use on our costumes), hardanger embroidery (which is a precise type of embroidery that when you are complete, you cut fabric out to make a lace), I knit and make sami bracelets (bracelets made of reindeer leather, reindeer antler and tinn thread). I also do our traditional painting which began back in the 1800s to decorate the home. At that time the fireplace was central in the home and the soot from the fire darkened the inside walls. They used the painting to lighten and brighten the interior of the home. This is the work that I am submitting to share with people in the neighbourhood. It is called rosemaling or rose painting in English. There are traditions of this in every valley as some are symmetrical, some are free flowing and of course the colours used are made from the flora and fauna available in that valley. This tradition has evolved over time and now can be done in either oil or acrylic. This particular piece was done in acrylic and includes a piece of our folklore which is the troll. Trolls can have more than one head, can have more than one eye or no eyes at all, but one thing for sure is that they all have a tail. Trolls live in the mountains and only come out at night. If they are caught out in the daylight they turn to stone. Trolls are not particularly smart and many of them have been caught by the daylight. This is why Norway is so mountainous! I have done rosemaling for many years and I have taught this art at the Scandinavian Centre. I often bring in artists from the US where they compete to be Vesterheim gold medalists. These people compete annually with their painting and must win several times to become a gold medalist. We have brought them to Calgary to share the art, their talent and to learn from the best!
Title: Weekly Hangout in North East
Location: 800 Macleod Trail SE
Year: 2022
Artist: Zoong Nguyên
Bio: Zoong was trained as a Graphic Designer. After her move to Calgary in 2005, she traded the computer mouse and the computer screen for the paintbrush and canvases and never looked back. What attracts her to painting is all the colors that the human eye can absorb and enjoy. The switch from digital art to traditional painting is the tactile medium. It’s something about how the natural light lands on the subject and then it dances there till the sun goes down to rest. She is easily mesmerized with the every day world. No matter how mundane it may seem, she can make it sing on a flat surface with paint. The practical acrylic paints help record each emotion or a mix of emotions she feels at a moment in time and at a particular space. Its quick-drying property allows her to move and mix paints impatiently without a wait. Zoong paints many subjects: still life, animals, florals, landscapes and figures in mostly impressionist style. Beauty is everywhere. It’s appealingly calling her name to capture the image on canvas. In 2017, she was awarded a grant from the Calgary Arts Development to do a series of Curvy Figures, a political theme that is not often addressed. She wanted to be contrarian to the images of skinny models shown in magazines and to paint the images of real women: beautiful, curvy, loving and resilient. Zoong has exhibited in Calgary and Edmonton. In summer 2019, The City of Calgary awarded Zoong with her group of multicultural and multidisciplinary artists a public art project, a sculpture titled Dance. The statue of a jovial couple dancing represents the happy moments of the area’s multiethnic citizens living in harmony. Located in the heart of Forest Lawn on the International Avenue, the sculpture is the welcome symbol. Currently Zoong is working on a series about her beloved city of Calgary. She finds landmarks in and around the city to paint in large formats in addition to the beauty of our natural wonders of the Rocky Mountains. Zoong’s works are collected in US, Canada, Singapore and HongKong.
Title: Thinking About Ukraine
Location: 110 Martin Crossing Park NE
Year: 2022
Artist: Allan Niilo
Bio: In grade school, Allan was the kid who could draw. Allan studied some art: sculpture and animation. Studied more art: this time graphic arts. Allan was awarded the Canada Council “B” Grant. Allan worked in advertising, branding and corporate communications, and is currently working in sculpture, painting and ceramics.
September to December 2023 mini gallery exhibits
Title: "Red Head in Canmore, Tourist, Senior in the neighbourhood"
Location: Martindale
Year: 2010 - 2013
Artist: Richard Grzela
Bio: Richard is a lifelong artist well-known in pop culture circles with a focus on comic, animation groups and sketch clubs. Richard's last major exhibition was at Happy Harbour Comics in Edmonton, for the Gilbert Bouchard Memorial art show named "Visions of Comics." Locally Richard's art has been seen in the Martindale Matters community association newsletter as well as in flyers for major retailers.
Title: "Prairie Winds & Mosque"
Location: Municipal building atrium
Year: 2022
Artist: Randy Herr
Bio: Randy Herr is a professional portrait and landscape photographer working out of the Northeast community of Temple. he is a second-generation Calgarian and has lived in the Northeast sector of the City with his family for 39 years. Herr has a background in electronics working for several companies including IBM and AT&T. Herr says leaving these organizations allowed him to pursue a lifelong passion for art with photography as his current business.
Title: "Pineapples in the morning, Pineapples late at night, pineapples all day!
Location: Crossroads Community Association
Year: August 2023
Artist: Karen Ho Fatt Lee
Bio: Karen Ho Fatt is a Canadian visual artist. She is a graduate of the Faculty of Architecture, University of Manitoba and most recently graduated from the Alberta University of the Arts. She has a number of public-art projects in various jurisdictions in Alberta including Edmonton, St Albert Leduc, Red Deer, Calgary as well as in Ontario. Karen knew art was her calling when she painted her first Paint by Number painting at the age of eight and made her first stone sculpture. Karen lives in the beautiful foothills near the Rocky Mountains, which serve as a constant source of inspiration.
Title: "Cougar"
Location: Municipal building atrium
Year: 2022
Artist: Julien Lee
Bio: Julian Lee is a Calgary visual artist who creates sculptures in styrofoam, clay, stone, wood and ice. In 2004 Julian began building large sculptures by competing at international competitions including Ice Magic in Lake Louise and Ice on Whyte in Edmonton. His largest sculpture was 11 feet tall, and weighed almost 2 tons. Julian was invited twice to partake in the Invitational-only Magnificent Seven All-Out ice-carving competition in Houston, Texas, competing alongside some of the best sculptors in the United States. Julian has been commissioned to create ice sculptures for the Grey Cup, Calgary Zoo-lights Festival, Spruce Meadows, Calgary’s Olympic Park, Lake Louise and Banff winter festivals, Heritage Park, and many other local community events. He has been featured in local newspapers and television specials frequently. Julian appeared on a Travel Alberta commercial. Julian’s last presentation was for Lougheed House with a sculpture named Amending the Flat Earth. This is a piece that calls on us to re-examine what we assumed as facts about what is happening all around us.
Title: “Mini NE”
Location: Falconridge
Year: 2023
Artist: Shruti Sharma
Bio: My name is Shruti Sharma, and I am currently studying Visual Studies. Since I was little, I have always had an interest in art, especially abstract art. I found abstract art appealing because there are no restrictions on colour or design. I am also inspired by the conversation with people around what they see in abstract artwork. I believe that memories are not only built on people and places but also on the emotions and thoughts we feel at that moment. These emotions are what I aim to capture in my paintings using the abstract style. All my pieces are the part of me I wish to convey to the people around me and the world without judgment. I hope that others can connect with my art and express their own imagination, emotions and thoughts in turn. Alongside my work as an artist, I have volunteered at galleries such as the Contemporary Calgary Art Gallery, and was a finalist in the Color International Juried Art Competition.