Exhibit August 25 - Oct 1st. (*edit, date was changed from Oct 7th)

Mostly sculptural and installation work will be on display.

Opening Reception: Aug 29 6:30 - 8:30 at the gallery

Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery, at the Jewish Cultural Center of Greater Vancouver.

Artist Statement:

Portals to elsewhere

“Pulling from the artist’s lived experience with disability and difficulty, the creatures are nuanced and strange, broken and fierce, and filled with conflicting layers that make up the whole of who they are.

Using symbols of human, animal and insect bodies, as well as monsters and ghosts, mechanical and abstracted forms, the artist suggests a complex psychological landscape in each figure. These visual metaphors evoke ideas such as primal instinct, imagination, haunting memories, self-protection, dignity, and resistance. The artist explores an allegory of what resilience might look like in the face of hard and life-altering circumstances.

Windows are a sort of portal to another space; they allow us to experience, even if at arms-length, another place. Through one, a person can observe the sunrise, listen to birds, spy on neighbours, all without leaving home. For a person with chronic illness, a window can be a lifeline, offering somewhere to escape to. In this exhibition, windows serve as a metaphor for imagining something different for oneself—a place to escape to or be oneself.

The large circular installation in this gallery is an invitation into a contemplative space, where seven figures each evolve through time. These drawings were completed almost entirely from bed, where the artist worked while too sick to leave the house over winter. She explored what movement might feel like through drawing when her body was in a state of collapse.

The artist’s process typically starts with small mixed media collages. She explores feelings and ideas through photographs, papers, magazines, paints, and other media until a complex and embodied presence emerges. These small works are usually finished pieces, and are often the inspiration for larger paintings, drawings, and sculptures over time.

In this exhibition, the gallery itself is transformed into a wild place where strange beings exist, stretch their legs, and find their place in the world too. These creatures are the artist, and they are you, in all their complexity, mess, and longing as they imagine a place where they can escape, belong, or call home”