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Oates Saturday,
November 18th to Saturday, December 16th, 2006 The term “objective correlative,” made famous by T.S. Eliot in his essay Hamlet and His Problems (1919), describes the formula by which specific reactions can be evoked in the arts through the appropriate combination of images, objects, and descriptions. In terms of visual effect, the idea of such universal “correlatives” set the stage for, among other things, the perceptual tour de force of Op Art, Minimalism, and Sunsets. To contrast this, Daniel Oates’ recent work takes geometric abstraction as a departure point for imagining an optically-based art which conforms in scale to the individual—a subjective correlative, if you will. These modest works rely on parallax—the apparent displacement of an object produced by a change in a viewer’s position—to create a three-dimensional effect, thus revealing optical experiences to be contingent, participatory events. Oates’ onsite works suggest constructivist notions of line, plane, colour, and form—historically imagined as a powerful system of forces—and in so doing recall the political aspect of formal innovations in the last century or so. New Yorker Daniel Oates is in fourth year of general arts at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, and is also a curator of Instead Gallery at ECI. In viewing his work, it may come as a surprise to some that Daniel is partially colour blind and also has difficulty with double-vision due to a rare condition involving misaligned pupils. |
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Jeremy
Hof
Taking a sheet of plywood and equal length of wooden dowling, Hof has cut each to fit the Back Gallery with the intention that every bit of the material be used, as in a perfect economy of means. But the singular poetics of this gesture become blurred during the actual process of transformation: even allowing for sawdust, the sheer number of cuts means that a slightly miscalibrated saw can spell disaster. As the exciting tête-à -tête ensues, Strategies For Coping With Change forces Hof to anticipate every variable—an uncomfortable, if real, premise for discovering the means to genuine agency in the world.
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Kayla
Guthrie Saturday
September 9 to Saturday, October 14, 2006 Mood Farter follows the artist through endless incarnations of trails and tribulations that followed Guthrie upon the examination of her drawing works. The medium is time consuming and became unable to accommodate diversification. Guthrie comes to see stylistic conventions, tropes, and a keen sense of ironic impulse as motivation to continue. From feathers to spray painted rocks, elements clash but in continuously doing so become a visual language in themselves. A language, perhaps, a sensibility, that is shared between both the watercolors and sculptures. Sculpturally, Guthrie is by far most concerned with methods of display and has leaned toward the reminiscence of the domestic as per the nature of the objects that she chooses. Her exhibition as interior design is decidedly twisted and other worldly, but function as a sort of personal space like a teenager's bedroom which so boldly and unapologetically display favorite icons, one on top of another, piecing together an evolving coherence of personality. Kayla Guthrie will be entering her final year at the Emily Carr Institute. She has already exhibited widely around Vancouver at Dadabase, Lucky’s Comics, as well as fronting the band Channels 2 & 3. Guthrie has upcoming shows at the Access Gallery Project Room in late September and at the Blanket Gallery in January of 2007. Finally, her work is featured on the cover of the current issue of Only Magazine. |
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Steve
Hubert and Nick Matranga Friday, July 7–Saturday, August 5, 2006 The combination of rationalism (to think that something is singularly what you know it to be) and the process of finding a plurality of meanings serves to illustrate, within Hubert’s works, how the simplicity of making, saying, or doing can bring truth. It is this process of free-association that creates a never-ending, pointless search that often returns right to where it has started. Hubert follows the confusion inherent within the philosophical conundrum and utilizes the circular logic in his works for this exhibition, including a site-specific spatial intervention. While Hubert is crafty and candid, Nick Matranga is primarily concerned with the irony inherent to visual, geometric puns, which, like their linguistic equivalent, come to rest on a repetition that achieves no conceivable end. His work, which encompasses elements of painting and graphic design, the sculptural and pictorial, finds inspiration in the successes and failures of linear structures—defined by their reliance on starting and ending points. Without ever fully setting sights on creating precise optical illusion, Matranga’s designs function to diagram our mental processes, and encapsulate the phenomenological moments within.
NICK MATRANGA, also an upcoming fourth year student, has been heavily involved in the painting department within the institute. His works continually revolve around the buildup of histories and movements within the medium, most notably the Neo-Geo and the Op Art sects. |
Steve Hubert, Still from Golfing with Derrida!
Nick Matranga , Untitled. |
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Jonah
Gray and Cameron Kerr Friday, May 26 to Saturday June 10, 2005 From the French for ‘to make’ or ‘to do’, the conjugated ‘Fait’ describes the connection in the act of making (concrete production) to the act of doing (authoring a work of art). Jonah Gray and Cameron Kerr have both paid due attention to both aspects of the verb by way of their medium. Gray's piece in the exhibition plays with the viewer's expectations by way of one’s own curiosity. He resists the probable, instead displaying the means of construction, the tools of the trade, perhaps, in the fabrication of the obscuring gallery wall which marks the divide between his and Kerr’s work. Vividly coloured paint covers aspects on both sides of the wall with shared intent of transforming objects beyond their conceived use and detracting from utilitarian associations. Over the years, Kerr has been extremely prolific in his conception and execution of ideas. Often working with decidedly solid materials such as marble, wood, or cardboard, the artist often considers the public, the literary, or the figurative. When working on such a scale, he must strongly consider his process and methods of traditional sculpture. Ideas must be rationalized and elaborated to one day be accomplished. Jonah Gray has previously worked in video but has expanded his sensibility into sculpture, primarily for its bodily possibilities and its life-size status, as demonstrated in the unique terms of visuality present in the exhibition’s installation. Gray is an editor of Woo magazine, Emily Carr Institute’s student publication, and has most recently been involved in the Kick Start the Art off-site graduation exhibition. Cameron Kerr studied classical marble sculpture in Carrara, Italy both formally at the Academy of Fine Arts and informally with monument builder Franchi Umberto and sculptor Manuel Neri. He also has an expansive public art project opening soon in downtown Vancouver. Currently Kerr is aiming to finish his degree at the Emily Carr Institute. |
-- Cameron Kerr, Bull Nose Barrier, Squamish Highway.
-- Johah Gray. |
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Raymond
Boisjoly, Terry Ray Brown, Mat Bushell, Michael Drebert, Anne Ehrlich,
Erik F. Hood, Andrew Hutchinson, Trevor Lee Larson, David Lehman, Dawn
Johnston, Cameron Kerr, Chloe Lewis, Alex Low, Julia Marshburn, Charlotte
Matthews, Monique Mouton, Tabitha Osler, Nicola Vardaro, Sam Willcocks Diminutive Disposition is a group show of graduating students from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design that takes the idea of scale as its starting point. Following an ever present common thread among the graduating class, the exhibition presents work concerning the tendencies inherent within the miniature as art as well as ideas surrounding the predilection towards unassuming or humble approaches in production. |
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Alex Low, http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay? |
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Laura
Piasta and Annika Rixen Friday,
March 3–Saturday, April 1, 2006 Laura Piasta and Annika Rixen’s collaborative installation blends paradigms residing on opposite ends of the spectrum of the human condition. If at one extreme you find science and mathematics, the opposing would house the incalculability of relations with another person. Piasta and Rixen are clear individuals with separate artistic practices. Two mirrored elements oppose one another, distinctly bearing signifiers of past memories and remnants of a constructed identity through musical affiliations. Almost miraculously, through the innocuous nature of formal treatment, the discrete entities connect, coalescing in graceful formation.
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-- Laura Piasta and Annika Rixen |
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Trevor
Lee Larson Instead of running amok with techniques borrowed from complicit historical figure painting, Trevor Lee Larson relies on a surreal approach to create numerous characterizations and combinations of himself and other simplistic beings. Molding a sensibility antithetical to conventions such as landscape or patterning, Larson forges forward with unabashed denial of technical skill beyond rudimentary visual ploys. Elements of chance explore construction of meaning and contribute to the reading of arbitrary relationships. The ensuing anarchic vision results in delusional and other-worldly abstraction. Trevor Lee Larson is a fourth year student at the Emily Carr Institute. He frequently works with ideas of abundance to create psychotomimetic experiences within his paintings and auditory works. Larson is also the guitarist for Vancouver art-rock band The Book of Lists. -- Curated by Charlotte Matthews |
-- Trevor Lee Larson, We Are the World, 2005. |
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No Minors presents a set of individual and collaborative thematic works by fourth year Emily Carr Institute students Erik F. Hood, Julia Marshburn and Sam Willcocks. 99 Bottles of Beer is a classic drinking song dating back to the 14th Century and provides sculptural and performative potential for Willcocks, Marshburn and Hood. Willcocks generously provides 99 bottles to bring the ritual to fruition for the opening. The participatory nature of the repetition within the song intends to bring audiences together through tried and true means of alcohol consumption. The thematic framing of the exhibition aims to examine the inclusive/exclusive means that this particular type of generosity from the artist operates in a wider cultural framework. Marshburn builds on Willcocks work by using the Mobius Strip to visually represent song and illustrate the endless possible recurrence of the lyrics. Following her interest in musical structures and formulas, geometric principles are introduced that enhance physicality while highlighting the nature of construction in popular music. Hood's video piece uses reversal to ensure a never-ending loop. With slow, methodical action the bottle is emptied but then refilled in the same manner that it was taken, preventing beginning and end and resonating the fantasy of a never ending beer. Sam Willcocks' researches and gains inspiration from iconic cultural items for his work. Generally, Willcocks avoids obscurity with his references but manages to dig deep into their pasts. Julia Marshburn frequently quotes the legacy of popular music to the point of fascination. She inserts herself into the narratives as an outsider from today with nostalgia for what she has never experienced. Erik F. Hood has a materially diverse practice that often surrounds concepts of memory and history. He will be studying in Iceland for a portion of his final semester. All three artists have worked in close proximity to one another for some time in addition to all holding positions on the publication team for ECIAD's Woo Magazine.
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--Erik Ho |
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