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Current Show: Heartwarming Art: a collection to warm your heart and your home July, 2007 Past Shows: James Bouthillier June, 2007 Pelin Canez May, 2007 Erin Rothstein April, 2007 Celebrating International Women's Day March, 2007 Velibor Bozovic February, 2007 Jesse Allarie January, 2007 Various Artists December, 2006 Frederic Smith November, 2006 Jean Francois Richard October, 2006 Andrea Kastner September, 2006 Sharon Sutherland August, 2006 Melanie Lefebvre July, 2006 Jessica Alfonso June, 2006 Galerie V Spring 2006 Exhibit May, 2006 Fire with Water (SACOMSS) April, 2006 J.M. Lougheed March, 2006 Anna Rita Torelli February, 2006 Brisa Ceccon Rocha January, 2006 Julian Haber December, 2005 Bernie Kelly Goulem November, 2005 Jenny Schädes October, 2005 Simon Laguë September, 2005 Stéphanie Bush August, 2005 Julian Haber July, 2005 Jean François Richard June, 2005 Phyllis Mintz May, 2005 Jesse Allarie April, 2005 Victoria P Wonnacott March, 2005 Kevin Nordberg January, 2005 - February, 2005 Sharon Ramsey November, 2004 - December, 2004 Jean François Richard September, 2004 - October, 2004 Scott Macleod August, 2004 |
Andrea Kastner About the Artist Andrea Kastner just received her BFA in 2006 from Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. She is thrilled to be back in NDG, where she can see her favourite alleyway from her studio window. She is now teaching art to children at the Visual Arts Centre. Andrea's work was recently included in the Studio 21 Emerging Artist Show in Halifax, and her next series will be shown as part of a group exhibition in the STRUTS gallery in Sackville. 
"Alleyways" Artist Statement This series began when I discovered a stash of plastic bags that my mother had accidentally hidden away for years in the back porch of my parents' home. Looking through these little bags brought back a wave of nostalgia for all the little shops on Sherbrooke that I used to visit as a child, and seemed to be a perfect addition to the painting of alleyways that I was working on at the time. Thus, the series began to take shape, and soon I was incorporating bus transfers, electrical tape, ticket stubs, and maps into my collages on sheets of plywood. 
Alleyways have always held a magical quality for me, especially the ones in NDG, where I grew
up. The aesthetic of the back alley is profoundly seductive: the sloping porches, run-down
sheds and the whimsical touches such as laundry suspended on a spiral staircase. The humour,
the grittiness and the touch of childhood nostalgia that emerge from the alleyways of this
neighborhood provide me with a constant source of inspiration. To me, the backs of our houses
represent the side of ourselves which is less carefully maintained, a side that I consider to
be more real than the painstakingly planned facade we present to the world. There is a kind
of honesty to alleyways that I love. The junk, the personal touches to people's backyards, and
the garages fallen into disrepair all seem to coexist in such an organic, fascinating way:
this is the kind of magic I am always trying to capture in my artwork. 
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