Prairie Art was born of a desire to capture the many inspiring voices that shaped the visual arts in Western Canada. These voices are connected by a deep-rooted commitment and love for the practice of art and the community that supports it.
Special thanks to the Volume 2 editorial team: Marlena Wyman (Chief Editor), John King, Paddy Lamb and Margaret Witschl. Expect the new issue late 2025.
Seeing life through the lens of art has been a gift to me that I passionately seek to share with others. I grew up surrounded by art, artists, and the subculture that comes with that.
In 1985, my mother, Agnes Bugera opened an art gallery with help from Terry Fenton, who had recently retired as Director of the Edmonton Art Gallery. The gallery focused on contemporary Canadian artists, mostly from Western Canada or with close ties to Western Canada.
In 2012 I took over my mother’s art gallery (Agnes Bugera Gallery) for the love of it, while maintaining my career as a Information Technology consultant. Shortly after taking over the gallery, I began to see a decline in the gallery business that went beyond my doors.
It seemed that an older generation of art lovers had stopped buying and a younger generation of art buyers had not yet emerged. I wanted to understand why this was happening.
I believed that a decline in liberal arts education and a higher cost of living for the younger generation was partly at fault. Government funding cuts for the arts and education started in the early 1990’s and slowly continued to erode support for students, art institutions and art programming in Western Canada.
In addition, the work of art critics and art reviewers also waned. It was their work that generated interest and engaged citizens and created awareness of the visual arts. The newspapers stopped writing about local gallery artists, and art magazines seemed to write only for those galleries that advertised with them.
Print media declined, social media was taking over, and online magazines could not gain legitimacy or readership.
Corporate art collections all but stopped in Alberta by 2012.
I began to talk to the older artists represented in my gallery, as many of them had been key influencers in the visual arts during their careers. I asked if they were seeing the same decline in cultural interests and support for the visual arts. They confirmed that they too were seeing it. This included Terry Fenton, Les Graff (RCA), Scott Plear (RCA) and Ernestine Tahedl (RCA).
They helped me to see a much wider gap in what had been, and what is now.
This online periodical exists to tell the story of the arts in Western Canada, by those who lived it. We are so lucky to capture their views and ensure their voices as well as their works are preserved for future generations to consider.
Angela Bugera Matheson