Displacement
June 27 - December 8, 2024

Group Exhibition
Curated by Artistic and Executive Director Lisa Tung

Displacement, an exhibition of works by 8 contemporary artists, explores the relationship between humans and their environments. Through textiles, sculptures, film, and scents, this exhibition examines human-driven alterations to the sea, land, and air, and the ways in which these environments are responding.
By investigating the historic and current relationship between civilizations and their environments, a range of issues are called into the frame, including migration, adaptation, and extinction. The visual languages of the artists in Displacement offer a lens through which the arc of human-environmental dynamics can be assessed and reconsidered.

The Age of Uncertainty
December 06, 2024 - March 7, 2025

Solo Exhibition
Curated by Kim Verrier
Organized by Red Deer Museum + Art Gallery

Sandra Sawatzky’s latest body of work is full of satire and symbolism. She exploits the apparent innocence of embroidery and skewers taken-for-granted assumptions about progress, consumption, technology and examines our relationship with each other and the earth. Flawlessly executed, her work lifts the fine craft of embroidery onto the main stage.

If the Sky Were Orange: Art in the Time of Climate Change
September 9, 2023, February 11, 2024

Group Exhibition
Guest Curated by Jeff Goodell

Organizing Curator: Carter E. Foster, Director for Curatorial Affairs, Blanton Museum of Art, assisted by the curatorial staff and the 2022-2023 Modern and Contemporary Mellon Fellow.
This special two-part exhibition explores the history and contemporary urgency of climate-related issues. Guest curated by journalist Jeff Goodell, who has written extensively on the topic, If the Sky Were Orange is the first exhibition at the Blanton to explore one topic across several of the museum’s temporary gallery spaces.
The exhibition features work by ten contemporary artists addressing how climate change affects life on our planet. Texts by Goodell and internationally known scientists and writers from The University of Texas at Austin and beyond interpret the artworks from the perspective of the authors’ specialized knowledge of climate change.

Writers featured:
Amitav Ghosh, Jeff Goodell, Katharine Hayhoe, Elizabeth Kolbert, Sy Montgomery, Julian Brave Noisecat, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, John Vaillant, Michael Webber, Amy Westervelt

The Age of Uncertainty
January 14, 2022 - May 20, 2022

By Sandra Sawatzky
Curated by Michele Hardy
Organized by Nickle Galleries

The Age of Uncertainty is a response to these times, probing into twelve issues that keep us up at night.  Some themes such as corruption, debt and inequity are as old as time. While some - climate change, artificial intelligence and nuclear warfare – are recent developments. The work illustrates and satirizes today’s human activity that shapes us and shapes the future.
The twelve hand-embroidered works are inspired by medieval illuminated manuscripts with their detailed illustrations, calligraphy, borders filled with flora and fauna and funny little elements called drolleries. 

Nickle Galleries is open Monday-Friday 9am - 5pm, Thursday 9 am-8pm, Saturday 11am - 4pm

Closed Sundays and holidays

The Black Gold Tapestry
March 22, 2021 - September 11, 2021

By Sandra Sawatzky
Organized by The Esplanade Art Gallery

Nine-years in the making, Sandra Sawatzky’s 220-foot hand-embroidered The Black Gold Tapestry tells the story of how oil has impacted human civilizations around the world, from bitumen bubbling up in the waterways and marshes of Iraq 5,000 years ago to the enormous influence of oil on the global economy today. Examining how oil and natural gas have fueled human ingenuity, progress, warfare, disaster, prosperity and commerce across the globe, The Black Gold Tapestry highlights fascinating vignettes from the past and the present that will surprise and even delight viewers of this truly epic project.

Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday Noon-5 PM.

Click on the virtual tour of the exhibition here ▻ The Esplanade Art Gallery

The Black Gold Tapestry
October 7, 2017 - May 2018

By Sandra Sawatzky
Organized by Glenbow

The inaugural exhibition of The Black Gold Tapestry took place in the fall, winter and spring of 2017-2018 at Glenbow in Calgary, Alberta Canada. The show was a hit for the gallery and over 84 thousand visitors saw it. The CEO and President Donna Livingstone said, “We are really delighted by the response of the school kids because they have been thrilled by it. Sandra has really become a bit of a rockstar for them in a a way I have never seen with an artist before." 

“Sandra Sawatzky’s “The Black Gold Tapestry is a tour de force.”

- Boston Art Review

“Charming yet jaw-dropping in ambition and scale”

- Brooklyn Rail

“Black Gold Tapestry, an embroidered artwork nine years in the making by Canadian artist Sandra M. Sawatzky, stands apart."

- Art in America

“The runaway hit The Black Gold Tapestry by Sandra Sawatzky has blown away many a visitor.”

- Glenbow Museum

“It uses an ancient and very traditional medium, very reminiscent of the Renaissance, to tell the story of the evolution of oil. It’s really lovely in that it’s a kind of storytelling about the long human history and connection around energy.”

-Jeff Goodell The Guardian

“Sandra Sawatzky’s Black Gold Tapestry comes as a great gust of fresh air…it creates a genealogy for humanity’s present predicament by placing it within history”

- Amitav Ghosh

“THIS. THING. IS. HUGE. 67 meters huge. The Glenbow needed over 5 walls to show the whole tapestry and I wish I could have spent more time going over every detail. I'm not an embroiderer in any sense, but HO---LY CRAP was this amazing to look at. It gives you the sense that you're looking at some ancient piece of history.”

- ArtSlug Blog

“Seeing the tapestry in person is highly recommended. No matter how high the resolution, or how vivid the colours, no picture or video image does this piece justice.”

- Resource

“Yet for all the portending doom of The Age of Uncertainty, there’s plenty of laugh-out-loud humour too.”

- GalleriesWest

“It’s easy to get wrapped up in the beauty and sheer ambition of Black Gold Tapestry.”

- Calgary Herald

“The Black Gold Tapestry, like the Bayeux Tapestry, is unique in its time. It is epic. It is beautiful. It is political.”

- GalleriesWest

“The Black Gold Tapestry is breathtaking. The colours are stunning. Most articles start by talking about either the size or the story, and both of those are worth discussing, but it is the beauty of it that grabs the viewer from a distance.”

- The Green Party Magazine Arts and Culture

“Although I was in awe from a distance at the size and scale of this art object, I immediately stepped forward for a much closer look…The Black Gold Tapestry might be one of the most significant modern STEAM projects exhibited.”

- Genome Alberta.

“The Black Gold Tapestry dramatically shifts the popular perception of embroidery from the quietly domestic to the assertively public."

- Preview Guide to Galleries +Museums

“More than simply illustrating a complex global history, The Black Gold Tapestry raises questions about how our international community is moving towards our energy future — one that is both uncertain and exciting.”

– Where.ca

“The Black Gold Tapestry by Sandra M. Sawatzky poignantly traces the history of oil and its profound influence on human civilization.”

- onegreenplanet.org

“Sawatzky’s Black Gold Tapestry is as magnificent, ambitious and visually seductive as its 11th century predecessor, The Blayeux Tapestry.”

- Artist & Climate Change

“There is a playful, almost graphic-novel-like feel to much of the work.”

- Calgary Herald