Mail Art Exhibition and Fundraiser at the Richmond Art Gallery
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Aaa by Deb Chaney (5” x 7”)
I’m excited to announce that a few pieces of my abstract artwork will be displayed in Richmond, B.C. beginning this week. They were created for a mail art exhibit at Metro Vancouver’s Richmond Art Gallery (RAG). The art show, Collecting & Reassembling, was organized in tandem with and accompanies the Classification Crisis exhibit by award-winning Yukon-based artist and poet Sonja Ahlers.
Mail art – also called postal and correspondence art – is an artistic movement focused on sharing small artworks through the postal service. In keeping with this, artists from around the world contributed postcard-size works of art for the exhibition.
Based on the principles of equal, one-to-one collaboration between artists, mail art has become a worldwide cultural movement for artists to share visual art, poetry, or any other artistic form through the postal system.
The open call to artists for this exhibit was inspired by the zines, chapbooks, collages, and mixed media works of Sonja Ahlers. Artists responded with their own stories, images, and ephemera into postcard-sized artworks which were then mailed to the Richmond Art Gallery.
The exhibit is coordinated by local artist and RAG Public Program Coordinator, Kathy Tycholis. As it’s also a fundraiser, there will be a live auction a couple of weeks after the show has concluded.
Collecting & Reassembling: International Mail Art Exhibition And Fundraiser
Exhibit: September 9th – November 5, 2023
Live Auction: November 18, 2023
About These Paintings
These 3 small postcard-size artworks were created specifically for the International Mail Art Exhibition. The theme of the show – and hence the theme driving their creation – is the idea of collecting and reassembling.
With this in mind, I collected materials already in my studio – such as stained papers, vinyl, and glitter letters. I played around with them, using gel medium and acrylic paint to adhere them to the paper canvas and bring the pieces together.
The colours of all 3 abstract paintings are bright blues, greens, and gold, as well as white and black. They have collaged cutout letters as well as handwritten words in cursive. Each small painting is 5” x 7” mixed media on paper.
RY, TV, and Aaa - Prints and Original Artwork for Sale Online
High-quality prints (larger than 5” x 7”) of all 3 mail art paintings – TV, Aaa, and RY – are available for purchase through Saatchi Art here:
TV: https://www.saatchiart.com/print/Painting-TV/499285/10813851/view
Aaa: https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Aaa/499285/10813833/view
RY: https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-RY/499285/10813871/view
Reproduction prints on Saatchi Art are available in 3 formats:
Fine Art Paper
310 GSM, 100% cotton linters, archival quality, natural white finish with a slightly structured, soft-textured surface.
Metal
Specialized inks infused into specially coated, thin, high gloss aluminum sheets. Exhibit mounted on 2mm black Styrene and finished with a black Metal Inset Frame.
Canvas
Museum grade, matte textured (20.5 mil), bright white, poly-cotton blend with no additives and no agents.
UPDATE. November 2023
An update from the International Mail Art Exhibition and Fundraiser from the Richmond Art Gallery.
First of all, thank you for your generosity. Our online auction raised over $1900 ! It was a busy, fun-filled night and we are just getting the final packages of purchased Mail Art in the post to their new homes.
With almost 300 artists in this exhibition it was a LOT for people to view and to choose from, so we are not surprised that not everything sold.
However, we have decided to keep the remaining artworks up in our gallery and online for an additional auction, in the hopes that all the artworks find a good home.
We now have 130 artists still represented online and in the Richmond Art Gallery, and they will be hosted at an online auction until the evening of December 31, 2023. Please have a look at our online auction, and share it with friends. All works start at $5.00 CDN and go up in small increments, so this has proven a really affordable way to start collecting some art!
The new auction site is here: https://app.charityauctionstoday.com/auctions/raga-mail-art-auction-part-2-40355
And if you want to see the entire show, it is online here: https://app.charityauctionstoday.com/auctions/RAGA-Mail-Art-Exhibition-Fundraiser-38022