Constructing the Landscape: Private Viewing May 2nd 2008. 7pm onwards
Posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 by isabellaegangallery
Chris Allen, Jessica Bell, Suzanne Kay and Nicholas Waissbluth.
May 2nd – June 6th 2008, 7pm – 9pm
Artists in Attendance
Work By Chirs Allen
The exhibition “Constructing the Landscape” brings together four young local artists working in four distinctly different mediums. Each artist has been asked to reflect on the changing and developing landscape in which we live, how this gentrification effects us as a society as well as a generation.
For Suzanne Kay her paintings are part of two current series of work entitled “The Working Harbour” and “Stations of the Trees”. “Both are focusing on the beauty and majesty of the machinery, which shares visual space with nature in our surroundings.’
Kay’s work has been painted in encaustic, a medium comprised of bees’ wax, damar resin and pigment. An ancient technique that has been used by artists since circa 300 CE. Each painting contains a photographic image acting as a focal point from which the landscape radiates outward. The surrounding landscape is built up of layers of textural wax providing the setting and mood of each piece.
Diversely Waissbluth, an architect by trade and a member of the Toronto based StudioExit, produces exactly executed digital compositions. Waissbluth’s work “engages the conception of boundary systems – where the physical and virtual merge to define and manipulate our perception of “place.”
Chris Allen, an incredibly talented print maker can be seen working with Lithographs and the Chine Cole process to create breathtaking prints, which objectify Architecture. “Architecture reflects our generation, but the buildings themselves tell more of a story.” The redevelopment of Vancouver’s lower east side has provided Allen with some inspirational buildings, where brick rubbings, graffiti marks and digital images come together on one print or canvas to tell the entire story of a buildings and societies history.
Jessica Bell works predominantly in Acrylic on panel. Her works are abstract reflections of the world that surrounds us. Her talent for pallet and composition creates some hauntingly emotional landscapes of heavily constructed area.
The Isabella Egan Gallery is situated in Gastown, Vancouver, an area that is currently experiencing much change and gentrification. The artists come together to reflect on this urban development, how it affects our society and the environment in which we live, whilst approaching the subject matter from their individual artistic style and medium.
