Brandon’s growing arts community is currently hosting three exhibitions, with BU fine arts students dominating two of them. The Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba’s main gallery is displaying the work of current BUFASA (Brandon University Fine Arts Students Association) students and recent graduates including Albyn Carias, Timothy Brown, and Melanie Barnett with the show curated by recent graduate Jessie Januska. The community gallery at the AGSM is displaying the favourite works of their famed and legendary Figure Drawing Studio, for whom I have been lucky to have modeled and mused, with paintings and sketches by Neil Strouffer, Curt Shoultz, and Kurt Noll, among others, gracing the corridor.

Upcoming is another BUFASA show opening October 11th at the Glen P. Sutherland

Gallery of Art titled “In The (K)now” which explores recent themes worked on by BU Fine Art Students, curated by the department of Visual and Aboriginal Art. The show opens at 7 pm and runs from the 11th to the last day on the 26th. The AGSM and GPS are the two bigger galleries in Brandon, providing a wealth of art events to the general public and BU students. The BFA program sees multiple students graduate every year and it’s graduates have gone on to residency programs in Banff, China, and France. Courses provided include but are not limited to, ceramics, painting, drawing, printmaking, and performance art. Future plans for the GPS currently include upcoming thesis shows of senior BFA students with times announced later in the semester.