A former Kamsack resident is one of 10 graduating students of the University of Regina’s faculty of fine arts who had a show at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina March 17 to April 1.
Two pieces of the work of Daniel Hilderman, a graduate of the Kamsack Comprehensive Institute in 2013, are included in the exhibition entitled X (Roman numeral for 10).
The son of Claire Bishop of Kamsack and Jeff Hilderman of Estevan, Daniel works in multimedia, using printmaking, drawing, painting and sculpture, says the artist’s biography included in the brochure accompanying the exhibit.
“He combines the fantastical realms of childhood with satire to examine social culture,” the biography says. “Daniel explores absurdities with his content in order to relax viewers’ interactions with fine art.”
“As long as I’m making art, I won’t conform to any sort of established boundaries,” he said.
Hilderman’s works are creations that explore the fantastical and potentially monstrous in contemporary figuration and, on some level, are stand-ins for self or an internal state of being, the biography says. In part, these can be understood as manifestations of social alienation and social critique.
“Hilderman reinforces this aspect formally, through vignettes that create pictorial spaces for these figures to exist within; initiating metaphoric, internal spaces, also interpreted as mindscapes.”
Although Hilderman initially enrolled in engineering at the University of Saskatchewan, he later switched to fine arts at Regina.
“He says he wants to continue working in fine arts,” his mother said last week.
Among family members to see the exhibit in Regina were his grandparents, Sally and Dr. Michael Bishop.
“As students of studio art, these scholars have been focused on the monastic preparation of their work, encompassing the visual interpretation of a multiplicity of reflections on a given issue,” Zachari Logan, an instructor, said in the curatorial statement included in the exhibition’s pamphlet. All works in this exhibition are linked by issues of identity and representations of a self-reflexive nature.
Timely perspectives on gender, mental health, colonialism, the passage of time and the perception of self are explored in challenging and inventive ways, displaying the rigor of intellectual praxis with materials.
“This exhibition invites the public to experience 10 realities, 10 stories, 10 spectrums, 10 identities, 10 perspectives 10 interpretations and 10 creators,” Logan said. “I am both proud and privileged to have had the opportunity to instruct them, and to present their distinctive voices together in this final public presentation.”
