Aron Hill
Aron Hill currently lives and works in Calgary, Alberta. He graduated from Alberta College of Art and Design in 2000 with a BFA in Interdisciplinary studies. He then completed his MFA at Goldsmiths College, University of London. His work there evolved into installation based projects using traditional drawing and painting methods alongside formal sculptural elements, large format photography and text based work. He has recently been focused on formalist paintings that recall aspects of minimalism and color field paintings though with references to the figure throughout. He finds conceptual company in the late Modernist paintings produced particularly in Canada. The choice of a restricted medium, acrylic ink washes on prepared raw canvas, forces restraint. The work's graphic nature relies on the sheer flatness this medium produces. Aron has exhibited internationally, occasionally lectures, and writes.
Aron Hill
Aron Hill currently lives and works in Calgary, Alberta. He graduated from Alberta College of Art and Design in 2000 with a BFA in Interdisciplinary studies. He then completed his MFA at Goldsmiths College, University of London. His work there evolved into installation based projects using traditional drawing and painting methods alongside formal sculptural elements, large format photography and text based work. He has recently been focused on formalist paintings that recall aspects of minimalism and color field paintings though with references to the figure throughout. He finds conceptual company in the late Modernist paintings produced particularly in Canada. The choice of a restricted medium, acrylic ink washes on prepared raw canvas, forces restraint. The work's graphic nature relies on the sheer flatness this medium produces. Aron has exhibited internationally, occasionally lectures, and writes.
Viewing Room
INFLUENTIAL
September 4 – October 11, 2025
Opening Reception Thursday, September 4th from 5 to 8 pm.
In celebration and honour of Katie Ohe’s new exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Alberta (with Marie Lannoo) and with the City of Calgary at Devonian Gardens, INFLUENTIAL features work by HKG Gallery Artists who have been taught, mentored or inspired by the work and life of Katie Ohe. Artists include Rhys Douglas Farrell, Kristine Zingeler, Marjan Eggermont, Dick Averns, Laurel Johannesson, Aron Hill and Alex Caldwell.
Katie Ohe, (born 1937, Peers, Alberta) is one of Canada’s most important sculptors and one of the first artists to make conceptual sculpture in Alberta. She is a beloved mentor who has inspired and taught generations of art students.
Marie Lannoo and Katie Ohe: Shift opens at the Art Gallery of Alberta on September 13th and runs until February 22, 2006. Fragment to Form | Katie Ohe and the Shape of Persistence, presented by the City of Calgary opens on September 16th and runs until December 17, 2025. This exhibition features Katie’s “Day and Night” sculptures which have been moved from Prince’s Island Park, restored and re-homed to the Devonian Gardens as well as the maquettes for these iconic works. This exhibition also features other works by Katie Ohe and her students.
Marjan Eggermont
“Reflections around 10 seconds”, 2025
"Kinetic dreams in balanced play—
She molds the wind, the light, the day."
- Marjan Eggermont
Laurel Johannesson
“Hydrosilver 1”, 2025
Hydrosilver is a response to Katie Ohe’s Venetian Puddle, drawing on her language of cool metals, reflection, and distortion. Ohe’s sculptures bend space and perception, inviting a sensory slippage between surface and depth. Her mirrored and metallic forms do not reflect the world as it is, but as it might feel—warped, softened, transformed.
The photographs here originate from my previous series Sopra l’acqua, captured in Venice through a mirrored structure positioned just above the surface of the canals. Light and water fractured the reflected world, producing images where the city dissolves into gesture, shadow, and abstract movement. The camera became less an observer than a participant in a shifting visual field.
Reimagined here in black and white, printed on metal, and held within mirror-finish frames, the photographs echo Ohe’s sensibility—sculptural yet ephemeral, stable yet fluid. Reflection becomes not a way of seeing oneself, but a way of perceiving through distortion—of slipping between what is seen and what is sensed.
- Laurel Johannesson
Laurel Johannesson
“Hydrosilver 2”, 2025
I have loved Katie's work since I first saw it, but I didn't consider her an influence until I spent time with her in person. She is wise, patient, generous, and kind, and I am so grateful for the friendship that has grown and the intimate time I have spent with her work. She has taught me to be open with my community and to embrace the knowledge of other experts. Her work teaches me to embrace the process and to always keep pushing and experimenting.
- Kristine Zingeler
Kristine Zingeler
“Bearers”, 2025
Marjan Eggermont
“Unsquare Dance”
Katie was inspiring as a teacher. She always had lots of energy and made classes exciting. I’ve always admired her dedication and commitment to craftsmanship and quality. Also, her interest and constant experimentation with different materials, from clay to steel, concrete to bondo and even rubber hoses, she was never afraid to try something new. The engineering on her kinetic works is also amazing.
- Alex Caldwell
Alex Caldwell
“2.5 D Square”, 2025
Rhys Douglas Farrell
“Radiating Aura”
Katie Ohe has been an inspiration and an influence on my work as well as many others. Throughout Katie’s career she has created many bodies of work ranging in theme, shape and color. Her work shows the amount of time, research, development and production it requires to remain an artist for many years. I am inspired by her work, passion, personality and love for art.
- Rhys Farrell
Alex Caldwell
“5 Red Rings”, 2013
Alex Caldwell
“Small Cloud”, 2013
I think it was in 1998 when I first visited Katie’s studio. I was attending ACAD at the time, taking a sculpture class with her. Katie had invited me over to see a new series of wall-mounted steel sculptures. She described some of them as nests and birds. I remember the tactility of those pieces—how they invited me to touch and hold them. Much of her work looked like drawing to me, strong and distinct spatial gestures. Northern Cross felt the same way. Though represented in two-dimensional space, I see it as sculpture—a welded group of lines nested in the blackness.
- Aron Hill
Aron Hill
Northern Cross with Pink Moon, 2025
Angela Lane
“Layers 3”, 2025
Katie Ohe’s teaching was a formative influence during my time at the Alberta College of Art and Design. Her emphasis on movement, repetition, and form stayed with me long after graduation, quietly shaping the direction of my practice. That influence resurfaced years later in my shaped canvases, where I explore perception, rhythm, and illusion — in part through the lens of Op art. My recent piece, Layer 3, responds directly to Ohe’s Third Movement (1969) and Ripple (1970), echoing the fluidity and optical dynamism found in her work. It is both a tribute and a continuation — an attempt to translate motion into stillness, and stillness into visual vibration.
- Angela Lane
Dick Averns "Katie’s Crown", 2025
These portraits speak to both the personal, and public influence, of one of Canada's greatest sculptors: Katie Ohe. Much admired and widely talked about, Katie’s hands are a compelling testament to her remarkable creativity, selfless nurturing and enduring grit.
Upon meeting Katie at the turn of the millennium, I had recently joined the sculpture faculty at AUArts, sharing an office with her and fellow colleagues. Quick to extend her professional and personal insights, I visited the library to learn more about Katie and my new peers. Finding a 1960 essay by renowned art critic Clement Greenberg, vaunting Katie as one of the “rarest of all artists in North America,” was staggering.
Many people know Katie as a modest, multiple award-winning artist, preserver of nature, and co-founder of the Kiyooka Ohe Art Centre. Yet she is so much more: a generous mentor, powerhouse of a woman who succeeded in a man’s world, and a multi-generational inspiration.
On so many fronts… so incredibly Influential.
- Dick Averns
Dick Averns "Vice", 2025
