DIDSBURY - A Didsbury artist’s nod to her abilities is one of 16 artworks selected by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for inclusion in its latest exhibit at the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton.
Opened Wednesday, April 17 Here & Now features the paintings, prints, fibre and sculptures of 12 artists, including Esther Suzanne Scott.
The exhibition’s themes include identity, female strength and human impacts on the land.
Scott’s fibre artwork is under the dis/ability theme and consists of plastic sequins and polyester thread on fabric.
“Special needs was a label I resented as a child with a learning disability. I’ve reimagined this term into a dazzling, shimmering message of acceptance for diversity,” she noted in her curatorial statement.
“By rescuing words that made me feel alienated for being different, I’ve turned them into a sequin encrusted, packed to the max, full on acknowledgement, that what makes us different, makes us special.”
The Didsbury resident, who was born in Edmonton, is known for the great amount of attention and care she gives to each construction.
Her artwork utilizes common and found materials to narrate a metaphorical parallel reflection of her life and of her surroundings.
The subjects depicted in her work highlight objects, images and texts that are most often over looked and considered unimportant.
The exhibit Here & Now runs until Sept. 29.
During a press conference for the exhibit opening on Wednesday, Cynthia Moore, Alberta Foundation for the Arts board chair, said the Here & Now artworks are part of the foundation’s permanent collection.
Artworks featured in the exhibition were curated from recent foundation acquisitions made through the Art Acquisition by Application program in 2023.
The Alberta Foundation for the Arts is a public agency and a provincial corporation of the Government of Alberta with a mandate to support and contribute to the development of the arts in Alberta.
