NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release

Contact: Julie Fowler
Toll Free: 1-800-442-ARTS (2787)
Tel: 250-994-3466   Fax: 250-994-3433
Email: media@imarts.com

WELLS, BC, April 29, 2008…..The Island Mountain Arts Public Gallery in Wells, BC is pleased to announce the Opening of northern BC artist, Beata Polanska’s Exhibition of photography, Where Do I Come From? Images from Poland on Friday, May 16^th, 2008 at 7:00pm. The Exhibition runs until June 16th.

“This series of images is inspired by the mood of places familiar to me since childhood,” explains Polanska who took the photos in or around three Polish cities; Warszawa, Lublin and Nysa. The latter two, located on the outskirts of the country (Lublin by the eastern border with Belarus and Ukraine, and Nysa in the South West).

“[These places] have largely escaped the commercialization, and glossification imported with the new world order,” says Polanska who is interested in the story that these abstract architectural images portray. “Their stories can be guessed from the layers, cracks, peeling paint, bulging veins, lined and wrinkled faces, and broken glass panes.”

Beata Polanska grew up in Poland when the sounds of rock and roll were only faintly audible from across the wall. She took her first photos with a Russian made Smiena, and sharpened her dark room skills in a government run youth cultural center.

At the age of 20, she gave into wanderlust and lived in France, Italy, Toronto, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, finally settling in northern British Columbia where she has worked as a speech-language pathologist for the past 15 years.

To find out more about this fascinating exhibition and life story, Polanska will be present at the Opening in order to talk about her work and answer questions.

For more information about the Island Mountain Arts School of the Arts, Public Gallery or the ArtsWells Festival visit www.imarts.com or call 1-800-442-2787.

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