In May of this year, Communities, Cultural Affairs and Labour Minister Carolyn Bertram announced that new works were being added to the Provincial Art Bank and that Islanders would have an opportunity to view the newest acquisitions to the collection.

Minister Bertram will be on hand at the Eptek Art and Culture Centre in Summerside at 10 a.m. Monday, November 24, 2008 to officially open the exhibition, which includes the 11 works purchased in 2008 and six works purchased in 2006. The public is invited to attend the official opening. The artworks will remain on display and open to the public until January 3, 2009.

“The Acquisition Program opens up new opportunities for Island artists and enhances the public’s interest in visual arts,” said Minister Bertram. “I hope everyone will take time over the next six weeks to drop in to the Eptek Art and Culture Centre in Summerside and see these captivating works of art.”

Information about the 17 pieces and the artists will be available at the Eptek Art and Culture Centre while the pieces are on display. For more information, visit the Art Bank website at www.gov.pe.ca/go/artbank or the Eptek Art and Culture Centre online at www.gov.pe.ca/peimhf.

BACKGROUNDER:

The Art Bank is a collection of work by professional artists which has been acquired by the province for display in public areas in provincial buildings. Started in the 1980s, the collection now numbers more than 120 pieces and is an excellent representative collection of the work of approximately 75 Island artists over the past twenty years.

The works featured in the exhibit are as follows:

• Water Shadows, an oil by Christine Trainor

• Fort Singleton Poppies, an oil by John Cox

• Push, a oil/gesso/acrylic by Stephen MacInnis

• The Woodlot, an acrylic by Stephen Christensen

• Where You Rest, an acrylic by Eun-Mee Yang

• Old Home Week, a silver gelatin print by Anna Karpinski

• Tree and Pumpkin, a pinhole photograph by Mary Carr-Chaisson

• Bell Island, Nfld., a photograph by Lionel Stevenson

• Searock, a clay piece by Jamie Germaine

• Nest Eggs, an earthenware and copper piece by Sarah Saunders

• Moonlight Dance, a leaded art glass piece by Susanna Rutherford

• Ocean Haul, an acrylic by Andrew Henderson

• Dyptique Serie Bateau en Asie - Les femmes au travail, a silver gelatin print by Dominique Cruchet

• Years Passing/Years Beginning, an oil by Brenda Whiteway

• Rm. No. 728, an oil by Brian Burke

• City Streets, Charlottetown, a watercolour by Julia Purcell

• Landscape on the Backside, a work of mixed media by Nigel Roe.