Eight emerging artists submitted five-select pieces of original artwork to Estevan's third Ev Johnson Adjudicated Art Show. Submissions ranged in medium, including woodburning, painting, pottery, sculpting, and photo manipulation; demonstrating an impressive amount of local talent. 

This year, the Estevan Arts Council was enthusiastic to be hosting Saskatoon-based artist, Allison Norlen as their adjudicator. 

Norlen is no stranger to Estevan and spent time in the community over the past summer with her show "Eccentricity". READ MORE.

After a morning of artist workshops, Norlen announced the winner of the third Ev Johnson Adjudicated Art Show at a well-attended public reception. Congratulations to Weyburn resident Regan Lanning and her compelling "portraiture on pottery canvases". 

During an interview with Discover Estevan, Lanning explained the story behind her work, saying "the whole set of five represent myself and my immediate family. Relationships are fragile, kind of like pottery is; if you drop it, it will break, if you don't handle it carefully, it will fracture, and relationships are that same way. I wanted to capture my relationship at that moment with that individual in a still frame."

"The next step - the whole thing is about metaphors between fracturing relationships and emotions - and my next step is to break the pieces on purpose and put them back together with a Japanese technique called Kintsugi, which uses gold to mend those breakages, turning them into something beautiful."

"It reinforces that relationships can be repaired, but you cannot repair them invisibly. There is always some remnant of that damage, but that doesn't make the relationship less worthy."

Lanning shared that there is a vulnerable quality to her work, indicating to a self-portrait included in the submitted pieces. "This is a self-portrait from 1999, and I was not mentally well at that stage in my life, which you can see in the piece, but I still had value, and I was still beautiful in my brokenness."

Mental wellness, whole and broken relationships, and intimate stories on the backdrop of vivid colours, continuous lines, and graphic art set Lanning apart as the winner of the third Ev Johnson Adjudicated Art Show this year. 

Lanning's work will be displayed at the Estevan Art Gallery and Museum as the winner of the adjudicated art show. 

Congratulations to all participants.