Art in the Rosebud valley
By Melissa Piche Times Contributor
Photo Courtesy of Rebbekah Odgen
A former student of Rosebud School of the Arts and YouTuber Rebbekah Ogden launched her latest collaboration of art at the Akokiniskway Art Gallery in Rosebud on June 29.
Ogden, who is one of 11 siblings, nine of whom are sisters, grew up in rural Saskatchewan and teamed up with her sister Laura Vaughters on the project.
Ogden moved to Alberta to pursue her artistic vision and attended the Rosebud School of the Arts and had great success as an actor, writer and painter.
The gallery that is being featured in Rosebud is called Sisters, Seeing Beyond the Mask.
“There will be nine paintings. It’s about my eight sisters. My one sister and I have done this project where we are taking our … sisters and then seeing ‘what is your social mask?’ and then creating art pieces out of it,” said Ogden.
She explained that the inspiration for this gallery came to her through her sister Laura, who is a photographer.
“She posted a beautiful self portrait of herself on Instagram and I saw it and I was like ‘can I paint it?’ because I’m a painter,” said Ogden.
She painted the self-portrait and recorded the process and posted it to her YouTube channel, where it went viral with three million views.
A neat aspect to Ogden’s initial painting was that she painted how she saw her sister, the feelings she thought she was going through.
The two brainstormed and came up with the concept to continue this theme with all of their other sisters.
“As sisters we know each other so well that we would be able to identify the social masks of each sibling,” she said.
Right now, the gallery is a Rosebud exclusive, but Ogden and her husband Joel Braun said they would love to get her art gallery into venues in Calgary, but nothing has been confirmed yet.
While Ogden was creating these paintings, Braun helped her record the process in a documentary-style video which can be viewed on their YouTube channel (@bekahandjoel).
Ogden has curated shows before with other artists, but this is her “first from start to finish”
The art exhibit runs until August 31 and is free to view.
More of Ogden’s work can be found on her website (www.rebbekahogden.com).