Free Rein is the newest exhibit at the Kamloops Art Gallery. It runs until Mar. 21 (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Chad Klassen

NEW EXHIBIT

New Western-themed exhibit aims to show off women’s role in ranching culture

Jan 17, 2020 | 4:46 PM

KAMLOOPS — The Kamloops Art Gallery is unveiling its latest exhibit on Friday night (Jan. 17) that puts a feminist perspective on Western culture.

Free Reign: Feminist Land Art Retreat aims to give an alternate viewpoint of cowboy culture, which the artists argue is very much focused on men.

“We’re all familiar with the cowboy, lone ranger out on the landscape, which is a very male-centred viewpoint,” said KAG curator Charo Neville. “So what they’ve done is they’ve used that trope of the Western and looked at it through a feminist lens. It’s really looking at the horse through a female perspective, so women working with horses. You’ll see a lot of beautiful shots of horses. There’s a three-channel video with three huge screens of horse culture in different places. One of them was actually shot in Heffley Creek near Kamloops.”

The exhibition tour is Friday from 5:30 to 6:30. The opening reception follows until 8:00 p.m. at the art gallery. In addition to bags of hay hanging from the ceiling, one of the pieces uses ropes to look like a halter and reign for a horse.

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This piece art, on display at the Kamloops Art Gallery as part of the new exhibit Free Rein, is meant to represent a halter (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

“It’s these incredible ropes that have been covered in red clay and then behind that are large-scale horse blankets. So part of their discussion is about that tension between the way that we control animals, so using the halter to control animals but blankets also is a form of comfort for a horse.”

The Free Reign exhibit is open until Mar. 21.