The Okotoks Art Gallery held a reception for Canmore artist Pascale Ouellet's exhibit Crated.

The reception allowed people at the event to talk to Ouellet about her work.

Ouellet said that she finds cows very interesting creatures, and that she wants those who look at her work to think as consumers.

"When you buy a steak it comes wrapped in plastic, and you don't even realize that you are taking a piece of an animal," Ouellet said.

Ouellet says she started to think about about consumerism and mass production, and how it effects people's views.

She says that she finds milk crates beautiful, especially in their details.

That is why she had large and small milk crates so that people could really look at the detail.

"I wanted to take this mass produced product, put it next to the cows and see if people connect the link between a stack of milk crates vs. a cow looking at you."

Ouellet took how unique the two things were and chose to represent that in her paintings.

She made prints of the milk crates, so that they would be the same and yet at the same time different, while the cows were each painted individually.

"Every print you make is different even though they start from the same template, which is the same as the animals. You breed them and inseminate them and they all turn out different," Ouellet said.

Crated runs at the Okotoks Art Gallery until February 27th.

 

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