Author: DebbieleeMiszaniec
Canadian visual artist.
Earthly Delights Power or Glory at the Art Gallery of St. Albert
Earthly Delights
Artist(s): Debbie.Lee Miszaniec
Date: November 8 to January 24
Exhibition Space: Staircase Feature Exhibition
In-Person tour: Friday, December 12 at noon
On the surface, Debbie.Lee Miszaniec’s Earthly Delights is the height of temptation – luscious donuts, seductive cupcakes and feasts for the eyes and mind. She spends hours painting the golden flakes on the pastry, or a glistening fatty sausage. Debbie.Lee’s expansive banquet scenes reference historic foods, feasts, figures and artworks.
Stewing within the work deeply questions our contemporary obsession with food, diet culture and body size. Health and wellness ideas are conflated with images of thin and fit bodies. We use virtuous language in refusal, graciously declining the temptations of food.
“There are still health concerns for individuals struggling to balance the health consequences of obesity against the health consequences of long-term weight loss efforts. As someone coping with that legacy, I am challenging myself to talk about it through my work,” Debbie says.
Image credits: Debbie.lee Miszaniec, Debbie.Lee Miszaniec, Power or Glory, 2024, oil and canvas with sculpture; Portrait of the artist, in the style of Titian by Courteney Miszaniec and Logan Miszaniec, 2024.
Power or Glory: Art Gallery of St. Albert Artist Moment Video
Exhibition on to January 24th 2026 at the Art Gallery of St. Albert
Power or Glory at the Art Gallery of St. Albert
Exhibition of Power or Glory: Stride’s Prairie Crocus Gallery (2024)
Reviews for Body & Mind at Kiwanis Gallery in Red Deer (2024)
Mini Donut Service
Wouldn’t we all like a mini donut service? I started this painting at the Calgary Stampede last summer during my engagement painting live and meeting the public in the Western Oasis. Of course, the way I work these days I knew there was no way I would be completing it in that 2 hour session, especially since I did more talking than painting. Which is as it should be, plenty of time to paint back in the studio. Or so I thought. Turns out that painting larger than life triptychs exploring the life cycle of diet culture can definitely take over your life and studio. So January of 2024 finally saw the completion of this lovely little painting of the famous stampede midway treat, the Mini Donut, together with a vintage book of Robert W Service’s western poetry. Enjoy this compilation of progress pics below. Want to buy this painting? Let me know!
One and Three Pears
Besides being a little shout out to an OG conceptual artist, Joseph Kosuth, this photo represents the process I went through to create Restrained, a stuffed pear tied to its seat with measuring tapes, which you can see now at the Okotoks Art Gallery in What You Do To My Body (and Mind) until March 22nd 2024. Referencing Kosuth’s One and Three Chairs (1965) I’ve presented the real pear, the paper pattern made from the real pear, and the small scale model testing the pattern for the larger finished pear. Below you can see the pear in situ:
Check out Restrained in What You Do To My Body (& Mind) before March 23rd 2024 at the Okotoks Art Gallery:
Review for What You Do To My Body (& Mind) at the Okotoks Art Gallery
So despite the bitter cold (high of minus 27 Celsius) I was pleased to chat with a good group of Art goers, both local and from Calgary, during the opening on Saturday January 13th. I also had the opportunity to chat with Amir Said from the Western Wheel about the show for his review. You can read it by clicking on the image below:
The exhibition runs until March 22 2024. For more information visit: https://www.okotoks.ca/your-community/living-okotoks/community-event-calendar/debbielee-miszaniec-what-you-do-my-body-and
Meet me at the Okotoks Art Gallery Saturday January 13th 1-3 PM!
Debbie.Lee Miszaniec: What You Do To My Body (and Mind)
Saturday, January 13, 2024 – 10:00am to Saturday, March 23, 2024 – 5:00pm
“visions of sugarplums danced in their heads…”
Just in time for the post-holiday New Year resolution season, Debbie.lee Miszaniec presents a lush abundance of Dutch baroque-inspired still-life paintings of ‘forbidden foods’ in the Okotoks Art Gallery. The exhibition focuses on the psychological struggle between the body’s needs and the mind’s direction when pursuing weight loss. A soft sculpture, tortured by these sweet sights, sits caught in the struggle between nature and diet culture.
Debbie.lee Miszaniec is an Alberta artist working in Calgary. She holds a BFA (2008) from the Alberta University of the Arts. Her paintings draw from her observations of the human experience, history and society as well as her own experience as a working-class Western female artist.
Exhibit type Visual Arts
Location Small Gallery
Event type Art Gallery
Contact Okotoks Art Gallery (403) 938-3204
Location Okotoks Art Gallery