Several new art exhibitions open up on Saturday.
Catch Collin Zipp and Mandy Espezel’s exhibition at the Dr. Foster Penny building has its’ ‘opening’ on Saturday, though it has 
been up for a couple weeks. The two University of Lethbridge MFA art majors have a variety of paintings, multi-media productions as well as a few surprises up their sleeves.
“We haven’t had many people here yet,” Zipp said.
His exhibits are based on a variety of artists like Richard Prince, Andy Kaufman and Chris Burden. Most are accompanied by text Zipp wrote to help engage the audience with the art. All of the pieces are related to each other. It is up to the viewer to make the connection.
Mandy Espezel is looking forward to the event. She has created a beautiful fall day inspired walking around the University of Lethbridge campus with blue sky, leaves and cloud balloons, among several other paintings and video productions
“I guess we’ll find out on Saturday,” she said as to what people think of the display.
The reception is 7-10 p.m.
Down the street at the Trianon, Troy Nickle will also be debuting his new exhibition. The reception is at 9 p.m.
The Southern Alberta Art Gallery is opening two exhibitions, on Saturday. Local artists Denton Frederickson and Catherine Ross are premiering “Between Material and Imagination” which will add context to their joint exhibitions “Aeolian Aviary” which will be unveiled Friday, Sept. 29 during Arts Days.
Their opening remarks will be at 8:30 p.m.
The other exhibition opening at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery is “Emotional Blackmail,” whi
ch includes 13 artists from all over the world exploring emotion through a variety of mediums including sculpture made from found objects, paintings and drawings, a collage of children’s works plus photos and several multi-media pieces including Benny Memerofsky- Ramsay and Aleesa Cohene’s “ The Same Problem,” which features a video of a man singing the melodies from various pop songs while looking at the ocean, interspersed with clips of ocean shots from numerous movies.
Curators Marcus Andresson and Chen Tamir are excited about premiering this exhibition in Lethbridge.
“ This exhibition is about emotion and how it is used in art,” Tamir said.
“It’s a group show of people showing how people are dealing with emotions,” said Marcus Andresson.
The two artists have lived all over the world, which is how they discovered the artists they chose for this show.
“A lot of the artists explored contemporary life with things like text messages. It’s fast paced and complex,” Tamir said adding one of the goals is to create a dialogue with the art
“It’s an a emoticon world with sad and happy icons. But people are more complex than that,” Andresson said adding it was interesting how the artists approached the idea of emotions.
“They took different approaches to their art and brought the emotions forward,” he continued.
They hope they will be able to tour with the exhibition.
But they decided to premiere it here because they thought it would get a positive reception.
“The SAAG seems to focus on contemporary art. They have a lot of resources,” Andresson said.
He also said Lethbridge’s art community is very receptive to contemporary art no matter how unusual or controversial.
Both exhibitions run Set. 24-Nov. 13. The opening reception begins at 8 p.m. with opening remarks at 8:30 p.m. A performance and discussion with artists Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir and Davíd Thór Jónsson will follow at 9 p.m.
