Once again the Estevan Art Gallery and Museum went through a creative transformation to allow the Estevan community to dive into an unpredictable and multifaceted world of arts.

On Friday night, the EAGM held a reception for Karina Bergmans, an artist from Ottawa, who brought a few pieces from her Ligaments and Ligatures collection to Estevan and who made the Gallery 2 look a bit like a fluffy, utopian anatomical theatre.

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“We communicate to our bodies, and in turn, our bodies communicate to us,” said Amber Andersen, the EAGM’s curator-director, introducing the new exhibition at the reception. “Yet, most of us will never know what our internal selves look like. We often do not think about it unless we are put into positions where we must.”

Bergmans’ exhibition pushes viewers towards thinking about the inner organs and the diseases that might be affecting them, but it does so in a very soft and gentle way. Her art pieces are made of various fabrics with wire constructions inside. They are much bigger than the real organs and thus don’t push away or scare, but rather invite to come closer and explore the details.

Bergmans came to Estevan for the reception and talked about her artist path. It started back in 2003 with the creation of big letter-shaped pillows forming words “cozy,” “warm” and “safe.” Later, led by the desire to one day come up with work that offered a serious message, she ended up creating a collection, which is an artistic discourse about a human’s physical inner world, life challenges and health failures shared by all people.

“Our most basic concerns as human beings are communication and the body,” said Bergmans in her artist statement. “A ligature refers to the typographic concept of two letters to form a new letter (æ). Ligaments are connective tissue in the body, joining bone to bone to form a joint.

“The exhibition, Ligaments and Ligatures, connects textile organ sculptures with word association to common disease. A tension is created by the seriousness of the subject matter and the tangibility of the materials.”

Only four pieces are presented at the EAGM’s exhibition. Bergmans explained that it was Andersen who helped her decide on the items to be exhibited in Estevan.

“I was fortunate enough to be working with Amber Andersen, who curated the show. And she was the one who made the final selection of works. It was really great because she knows her space and she knows what size things can fit in there,” said Bergmans.

Out of pieces that are currently on display at Gallery 2, Bergmans noted Lungs as the one that stands out for her.

“It was a piece that I had at (Ottawa’s) City Hall show. It was interesting to make them. It came out very organic. It’s wire, wrapping, some of the collected fabric scraps that I had and yarn… I really wanted to have it bigger than you could ever imagine a set of lungs to be, so you could really have a presence with it. And I really like the way it’s been installed, because it’s a little bit higher than someone’s head, so you have to look up to look at it. And it really has a presence in the room in that way,” said Bergmans.

At the reception, Bergmans talked about the different projects and art pieces she created throughout the years, including an inflatable installation Airborne Allergens and some others.

Large-scale, but at the same time light and elegant lungs in a couple of interpretations, and cozy velvet heart with “attack” connected to it, along with the Bloodletting will be on display at the EAGM through March 20. Bergmans' other work can be found online at KarinaBergmans.com.

The reception for another exhibition named Sheltered by Janet Shaw-Russell, now on display at Gallery 1 at the EAGM, was also held the same night. For more on the story see this week’s edition of Southeast Lifestyles.