Collins Studio Gallery
Jimmy Golden
Lost Ortona
Site #20
Collins Studio Gallery
11741-94 street Edmonton
June 19 - July 19, 2025
Wednesday to Saturday: 12:00-6:00 pm or by appointment
Fava Suite, second floor Facing East by Jimmy Golden
This exhibit includes 25 drawings capturing the last days in the historic Ortona Armoury Art Building.
Jimmy Golden is an artist who has been working in Alberta for decades, honing his drawing, calligraphic, and painting abilities. Evidence of this can be seen in his drawings which he created while he was artist in residence at the Ortona Armoury. The Ortona’s 100+ year history, with all its different occupants and upgrades, imposed an organic interior design that could never be replicated. Jimmy’s artwork captures the essence of the Ortona’s soul before it was completely reformatted.
FEATURED ARTISTS: Jimmy Golden
Opening Reception with Jimmy Golden
Thursday, June 19
5:00-9:00pm.
*Audio visual performance by Shawn Pinchbeck at 7pm
Scapes and Shapes at The Works Art & Design Festival:
Friday, June 27
8:00pm-10:00pm
Collins Studio Gallery, 11741-94 Street
Admission by sliding scale $5 to $25.
Expect a night when sound and vision collide in an atmosphere where anything can happen. Three visual artists creatively join forces with three audio acts for an experimental evening melding two different sensory disciplines to produce potential masterpieces. Artists and pairings TBA.
ABOUT THE ORTONA DIASPORA
Ortona Diaspora is a group exhibition celebrating a dispersed arts community that faced an uncertain future in 2019. Ortona Artists’ Reach Society (OARS) is proud to feature artists of the Ortona Armoury Arts Community from past and present through an array of mediums including sculpture, painting, film, drawing, steel drum, vidéo, party dancing, live talk show, photography, home movies, installation and performance art. OARS is multidisciplinary, multicultural, multilingual and multi-generational, and are inspired to assembling with their cherished and supportive community partners. This Edmonton-based grassroots community is alive, expanding, and growing in encouraging and unforeseen ways. Ortona Diaspora is a dynamic reflection of this unique arts community in flux.
The Ortona was home to many artists, including misfit anarchists with a punk rock ethos. Prior to the recent gutting of its historic 1940s interior naval design, the Ortona Armoury Arts Building had been open to the public and was home to a steel drum band, a film co-op, filmmakers, conservators, writers, cinematographers, editors, photographers, painters, musicians, poets, performers, composers, dancers, actors and agitators, as well as eleven in-studio artists along with their collaborators, enthusiasts, volunteers, families and friends. The artists of the Ortona always invited and included the wider public community at every opportunity. This exhibit captures a glimpse of the Ortona powerhouse of Art.
OARS is motivated to highlight the significant work of these artists who were dispersed due to their 2019 renoviction from their home, the historical Ortona Armoury Arts Building in the Rossdale neighbourhood.
Funding generously provided by the Edmonton Arts Council and the City of Edmonton
Curated by the Ortona Artists’ Reach Society (OARS)