>>PREVIEW
HUMAN/NATURE
Runs until May 6
Triangle Gallery
Where we fit into the natural world, and where the natural world fits for us, are questions that artists have always explored. But the answers are often surprising, as four female Alberta-based artists have discovered in the new installation human/nature, on display now at the Triangle Gallery.
In 2004, a curator from the Shanghai Art Museum, who was visiting Edmonton, invited Liz Ingram, Amy Loewan, Lyndal Osborne and Laura Vickerson, four accomplished visual artists, to display their works in China. With assistance of Canadian consular staff based in Shanghai, the Doland Modern Art Museum (the first museum of contemporary art in China) was secured as a venue for the show.
Since that exhibition in April/May of 2004, human/nature has travelled to Hong Kong, Edmonton, Saskatoon and now Calgary. Although some of the original works are not on display, the sweeping themes of humankind’s relationship to nature and each other shine through.
In Vickerson’s work William’s Carnations, a curtain has been fashioned from rose petals and dress pins, resulting in an eloquent comment on what was until recently referred to as "women’s work."
ðThe reference to women's work is addressed by the repetitive pinning of the petals, which speak about things such as sewing and needle work, often undervalued and considered as less than serious activities," says Vickerson in the artist’s statement. "By using ephemeral materials such as rose petals, it is my intention to speak about this type of labour and imbue it with value and integrity."
For Vickerson, exhibiting her work in China also provided her with information about how citizens of different nations view nature.
"In China, the work I showed was a much larger rose petal work and I think it communicated the idea of nature on a larger scale, as the viewers seemed amazed," she says. "This is very much a part of the Canadian experience – from the Rocky Mountains to the vast Prairies, we have a big country and much untouched and pristine land… which is not the case in such cities as Shanghai and Hong Kong, where a patch of grass is hard to find."
The human/nature investigation continues in Ingram’s works, which use images and depictions of water and the human body to underscore the essential link we have with this life-sustaining element. Raised in India, Ingram became aware of the fragility of life at an early age. She says North Americans have become complacent, seemingly protected from the harsh realities of our world.
"My youthful experience in India was formative," she says in the artist’s statement. "And I believe that it heightened my sense of the uncertainty and precariousness of life. The work showing at the Triangle Gallery is about the fragility and preciousness of life. In North America we live with a false sense of security and a separation from the experience of birth and death. In India the extremes of birth and death, joy and sorrow, beauty and ugliness, pleasure and pain, are always evident and present. This country of extremes had a great effect on me as a child and influences my work to this day."
Located in the upstairs portion of the gallery, Ingram’s Synectic Stream (floor installation) allows visitors to walk across this water-inspired work and absorb what it means to live in one country where mountain streams flow, and another where water literally separates millions of people from life and death.
Loewan’s A Peace Project perhaps suffers the most – to accommodate the gallery’s space, the two sections of the project have been exhibited at separate points and placed near the gallery’s walls. In China, viewers could walk around the large rice paper panels, where their impact could be appreciated. Despite these limitations, Peace Project #1 and # 2 are creations worth pondering.
"I intertwine world languages and symbols to express my deep appreciation for the diversity of culture and beliefs," writes Loewan in the exhibition catalogue.
Close inspection of the panels reveals a pattern woven from strips with the words "compassion, kindness, respect, understanding, patience, tolerance, gentleness and forgiveness."
Osborne’s Accretion Tables is comprised of 360 small boxes, which contain natural and industrial materials, displayed on nine tables that dramatically cut diagonally through the space of the gallery. She collected the materials during a 2003 trip to her homeland Australia, one to Newfoundland in 2000, and in her adopted home of Edmonton, where she often gathers items from along the banks of the North Saskatchewan River.
"I deliberately collected the smallest things I could find," she says. "Those materials that would normally be overlooked – the minute shells or the thorns painstakingly picked off a Caragana bush. If the material wasn't small enough, I would often cut or break it into smaller parts, like the crab and lobster bands found strewn on the beaches of Newfoundland. Everything was collected by me, and has a strong resonance for me of my engagement with that area of the world.
"It is repetitive, contemplative and a process that stimulates me to think about my experience with nature and what I want to say," she adds.
And by paying close attention to our wondrous world, Ingram, Loewan, Osborne and Vickerson invite all of us to examine the bits and pieces that make up the human/nature connection. |
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