While we Wait: Records of Solitude
With works by Sarah Delaney, Annie Briard, Jessica Bushey and Kriss Munsya
March 6, 2021 - May 1, 2021
We are pleased to announce the exhibition “While we Wait: Records of Solitude”. This group show brings together the works of four artists, Annie Briard, Sarah Delaney, Jessica Bushey and Kriss Munsya, living and working in Vancouver, BC. The pieces have been produced in the past year while under lockdown during the pandemic, while we are all waiting. Waiting for this pandemic to be over, waiting for borders to reopen, waiting for a vaccine, waiting to see what model or ways of living will manifest themselves after this is over, once this pandemic is over.
Each artist is working with and exploring a different medium. Annie Briard’s LED light boxes showcase her explorations into light and color. Over time the color shifting light boxes present the full spectrum of light investigating parallels of natural and artificial light, time and perception. Briard’s immersive light-based works call on the subjectivity of perception. The horizon of the light-boxes is slowly shifting in color, stimulating the viewer to question the process of color-generation and –recognition, hinting to the ambiguity of reality. An indulging and appeasing display of color evoking arrays of memories and dispositions. This feature of her work at the gallery coincides with her solo exhibition “Within the Eclipse” at the Burrard Arts Foundation.
“By encouraging us to look longer, more deeply, and from a different stance, Briard’s work creates fertile dissonance, where the concreteness of reality begins to melt away.” (Burrard Arts Foundation)
Sarah Delaney’s work is made of acrylic and graphite on canvasses that are torn and sown together. Her seemingly spontaneous brushstrokes and abstract forms, color and materials reference the landscape of her home British Columbia. This brand new work marks an evolution in her painterly research as an artist and although we can recognize some of her signature marks, there are some more gestural marks and more loose brushstrokes that can only come from a more confident and mature place.
Responding to the pandemic, Jessica Bushey chose to work on plexi glass and with the “disposable-mask blue”, recalling the most prominent artifacts of this period. Her Google-Oracle 2020 series presents a chronological progression of our global experience of COVID-19 through captures of the most popular google searches from around the world. The text-based works on plexi glass plaques are imitating signage often used for orientation and identification in public buildings speak to the inevitable role of the internet manifested through this pandemic.
This time during the pandemic seems to be marked by the meaning of waiting, however political activism and calls for more equality in face of affirmed disadvantages in our societal structure are more pertinent than ever. As one of those calls, Black Lives Matter is more than a movement and a call to action we all need to answer. In his photographic series “The Eraser”, Kriss Munsya explores race, gender and identity; creating powerful and meticulously composed photographs informed by stories questioning his own identity and memory, childhood trauma and discrimination he was and is confronted with. We will be presenting two photographs from this body of work.
“The Eraser juxtaposes experiences of the past with desires of the future. It is a story of change and transformation that centres a Black man revisiting experiences that have been normalized in critical reflection of internalized supremacy. Things that at the time he thought were normal now have new meaning and he wants to share the lessons within.” (Kriss Munsya)
Each artist is working with and exploring a different medium. Annie Briard’s LED light boxes showcase her explorations into light and color. Over time the color shifting light boxes present the full spectrum of light investigating parallels of natural and artificial light, time and perception. Briard’s immersive light-based works call on the subjectivity of perception. The horizon of the light-boxes is slowly shifting in color, stimulating the viewer to question the process of color-generation and –recognition, hinting to the ambiguity of reality. An indulging and appeasing display of color evoking arrays of memories and dispositions. This feature of her work at the gallery coincides with her solo exhibition “Within the Eclipse” at the Burrard Arts Foundation.
“By encouraging us to look longer, more deeply, and from a different stance, Briard’s work creates fertile dissonance, where the concreteness of reality begins to melt away.” (Burrard Arts Foundation)
Sarah Delaney’s work is made of acrylic and graphite on canvasses that are torn and sown together. Her seemingly spontaneous brushstrokes and abstract forms, color and materials reference the landscape of her home British Columbia. This brand new work marks an evolution in her painterly research as an artist and although we can recognize some of her signature marks, there are some more gestural marks and more loose brushstrokes that can only come from a more confident and mature place.
Responding to the pandemic, Jessica Bushey chose to work on plexi glass and with the “disposable-mask blue”, recalling the most prominent artifacts of this period. Her Google-Oracle 2020 series presents a chronological progression of our global experience of COVID-19 through captures of the most popular google searches from around the world. The text-based works on plexi glass plaques are imitating signage often used for orientation and identification in public buildings speak to the inevitable role of the internet manifested through this pandemic.
This time during the pandemic seems to be marked by the meaning of waiting, however political activism and calls for more equality in face of affirmed disadvantages in our societal structure are more pertinent than ever. As one of those calls, Black Lives Matter is more than a movement and a call to action we all need to answer. In his photographic series “The Eraser”, Kriss Munsya explores race, gender and identity; creating powerful and meticulously composed photographs informed by stories questioning his own identity and memory, childhood trauma and discrimination he was and is confronted with. We will be presenting two photographs from this body of work.
“The Eraser juxtaposes experiences of the past with desires of the future. It is a story of change and transformation that centres a Black man revisiting experiences that have been normalized in critical reflection of internalized supremacy. Things that at the time he thought were normal now have new meaning and he wants to share the lessons within.” (Kriss Munsya)
News
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"Kriss Munsya reclaims memories of childhood trauma and racism"
by Marigold Warner for 1854 British Journal of Photography |