>>PREVIEWS
SCOT BULLICK: MONSTERS
Runs until October 7
KRISTI MALAKOFF: MEADOWSWEET
Runs until September 30
Stride Gallery
There is a monster on the wall in a grotesque tweed suit, with a bone sticking out of its breast pocket. Beside it, another monster is in profile, uncomfortable with being in a framed portrait. Looking around, there are actually monsters everywhere.
Stride Gallery has monsters, or to be clear, Scot Bullick’s show, Monsters. Consisting of eight displays, Bullick’s monsters are ink, pen, watercolour, stone and felt creations. Each mini-installation is called a Station of the Monster and a theme, such as Chub, Doubt or Sly Attack. Each station has a series of portraits and a shelf of multi-media monsters. It’s rather like looking at a family gathering or a rogues’ gallery collection.
These are not cute monsters, but they are not evil either. Justin Waddell, Stride Gallery’s director likes their look. "They all seem to be uncomfortable, out of alignment somehow," he says. "People have been very enthusiastic about the show."
Each Station of the Monster has a variety of media including "soft" monster felt creations and carved rock two-faced creatures, as well as the grouped portraits. Working with felt is a fiendishly long process – Waddell describes it as "working with cotton candy." The stone creature faces are the result of a vacation and a penknife, with Bullick compulsively carrying these rocks with him, slowly chipping away a monstrous face on one side with a contrasting one on the reverse. All of these creatures remind people of the types of illustrations found in children’s books, or graphic novels, but there is no narrative structure surrounding these lumpy, blurred, awkward creations. The monsters are there because they just are. According to the artist, viewers should approach his monsters unprepared but without fear.
Stride Gallery’s co-exhibitor this month, Kristi Malakoff, could not have a more contrasting installation. Yet, in a way, her exhibition is bloody terrifying. Titled Meadowsweet, Malakoff has created a fantasy 3D cabin in a forest with trees, deer and birds made of 23,000 very tiny photos of flowers. The cabin, animals and the setting are covered in these carefully, individually mounted cutouts that the artist photographed in Banff during her residency. The sheer scope of the focus and attention to detail is initially shocking. "It’s a little overwhelming to see what she has put into it," says Waddell. "People are just blown away by it."
The scene is a riot, an explosion of colour. The flower photos cover every centimetre of the pieces – even the inside of the cabin is covered in tiny flowers. "It took Kristi three weeks, working late into the night to finish the piece," says Waddell. "After the show, she will scrape them off, disassemble and start all over again at her next show."
Set against Scot Bullick’s Monsters upstairs, Kristi Malakoff’s Meadowsweet is an interesting foil to the sense of play and offbeat nature of Bullick’s works. |
Copyright ©2006 FFWD. All rights reserved.