A while back I was walking down Alberta when I came across a great little gallery called the Guardino Gallery. Now this shop may be in the Alberta Arts District but it is miles beyond the low-brow, hippy, cloned canvases of birds and creepy monsters that the district is lauded for. They carry a number of thought-provoking, original and skilled artists. But one artist stood out to me. Kelly Neidig. Her work consists of bright bands of oil paint jetting across the canvas. To me they look like exactly what I see when I’m riding shotgun down the highway looking across the fields of agriculture. At close range the rows of crops flip by so fast you can’t focus on any fine detail but if you gaze more towards the horizon they steady and slowly fan by like a lazy summer breeze. Kelly’s ability to create speed and peace in the same moment made me eager to meet her. After all, I still regularly visit the Guardino Gallery just to see her stuff.

So I am now working with Kelly on a project that I hope to present in Spring 2012 called Shotgun. It will be a bit of a road trip movie done in dance and, if all goes well a recreation of one of Kelly’s paintings on stage for the dancers to interact with and manipulate. I can’t wait.

Check out Kelly’s site here: www.kellyneidig.com