//2003
November 14 - December 13, 2003
//Annual Members' Exhibition
More Than Décor
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The annual members' show allows local artists to exhibit their work in a professional space, creating a dialogue about current artistic production in the community. The exhibition, held in conjunction with the annual membership drive, is a fundraising event for the gallery.
September 26 - November 1, 2003
//Biogenetic Landscapes
Eric Lamontagne, Luce Pelletier
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Nature, Land, Laboratory: Biogenetic Landscapes presents installations by two artists from Québec who reference scientific methodology, the border between art and science and bio-genetic interventions in our natural environment.
Eric Lamontagne constructs an artificial scientific research centre with live singing crickets as interpretive guides. Armed with a camera and following recent discoveries in 'bio-photo-genetics,' Lamontagne hunts and collects human specimens, classifying and pinning each miniaturized portrait in a framed display. By adapting lens, film, filter and effect to scientific data on animal vision, Lamontagne also presents photographs of the world based on our understanding of how animals see.
Luce Pelletier, in a series of photographs and sculptures, juxtaposes images of pumpkins in the agricultural landscape with hand-made ‘pumpkin' footwear. Pelletier presents these manufactured fantasies to question cloning, genetic modification of foods and the future of agricultural science.
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August 8 - September 13, 2003
//The Land and Lost Histories
Keith Langergräber, Atefeh Shojaie
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The Land and Lost Histories: Journeys into Cultural Landscapes introduces works by two British Columbia artists who reconstruct cultural and historic landscapes by excavating artifacts and exploring memories.
Keith Langergräber (Vancouver) reconstructs an abandoned Chinese migrant farm located near the Fraser River delta on the Musqueam reserve in an installation composed of drawings and a sculpted riverbed. Langergräber's research, exploration and documentation of the site uncover an historical legal battle over property taxes that presages current issues surrounding aboriginal land rights. Using a museological approach to document multi-layered histories, Langergräber records how culture embeds itself within and effaces the land.
Atefeh Shojaie (Kelowna) revisits childhood memories of Iran in a mixed-media installation that questions the role of culture in creating a sense of belonging. Combining influences from both Iranian and Canadian cultures, Shojaie invites viewers to journey through her landscape of cultural identity.
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June 13 - July 19, 2003
//Negotiating Social Landscapes
Christine Shaw, Brian G. White
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Space: Negotiating Social Landscapes pairs the works of two artists who consider skin as permeable boundary - one in the haptic realm of architecture and the other at the site where individuals enter the social realm.
Christine Shaw (Toronto) works with rubber, latex and inflatable tubing to encourage social interactivity. Shaw insinuates her practice into the architectural properties and behavioral characteristics of the gallery. Subverting acquiescence to ceiling and floor, Shaw investigates ways to manipulate the horizontal plane between ground and ceiling.
Brian White (Victoria) pushes pattern and decoration into randomness and indecipherability in painting directly on the gallery walls. While initially comfortable and familiar, the multitudinous color variegations do not placate, but entice further visual speculation.
April 25 - May 31, 2003
//Gridding the Landscape
Tim van Wijk, Sara Graham
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Gridding the Landscape presents work by artists who address effects of industrialization and suburban development on the environment. Artists address effects of industrialization and suburban development on the environment.
Tim van Wijk (Victoria) constructs a model 500kV power line in the gallery with towers supported by guy wires mounted on a green contoured platform. Using humor and irony, Van Wijk critiques the grandeur of modernization by examining how rapid industrialization has wrought changes on the landscape and created a new geography of dams, landfills and cut-lines.
Sara Graham (Calgary) installs a series of drawings and models of a fictional city gone wrong due to failures of urban planning. In Bromley's Bluff, Graham engages the viewer not in futuristic predictions of the 'model' city, but in an imaginative and exaggerated depiction of current problems.
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March 7 - April 12, 2003
//Landscapes Beneath Consciousness
Group
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Life Below: Landscapes Beneath Consciousness explores the visceral terrain of the unconscious where everyday events and images are transformed into dreams and nightmares. Three artists from Britain and an artist from Victoria manipulate landscape references to probe deeper into aspects of our collective psyche.
Clare Charnley, Penny McCarthy and Alexa Wright (Britain) play on our fears of rats, cobwebs and earthworms in photographic series. Charnley structures a relationship between rat skins and tiny human figurines that is reminiscent of horror movies and fairy tales. McCarthy's magnified cobwebs, photographed as negatives, are eerily black and menacing. Wright's large-scale photographs of earthworms exaggerate the sensuous and the revolting in translucent detail.
Fae Logie (Victoria) creates an environment that references a darker subconscious by combining a giant table of perforated steel with projected images and audio evoking the ocean, children's play, dining and mythology.
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January 10 - February 22, 2003
//Our Home and Native Landscape
Scott August, Chris Gillespie
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Our Home and Native Landscape presents works by two emerging British Columbia artists who address issues of Canadian popular culture, landscape, storytelling and iconography using trees and forest as references.
Scott August (Kelowna) installs a plaque-art forest in the main gallery with trees, stuffed animals, woodpiles and plaque art. August's portrayal of the production of plaque art from natural forests of plaque art trees lightheartedly integrates a form of popular culture into contemporary art.
Chris Gillespie (Victoria) arranges carved clay miniatures of conifers and a snowmobile in a corner of the gallery. This installation presents a potentially simple narrative, with a sense of mystery, ambiguity and absence. The subtle banality and quietude of these miniatures invite reflection on cultural myths and icons.
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