Tilted Brick Gallery Association
2021 EXHIBITION ARCHIVES
VIEW POINT: A Fibre-based Exploration of the Natural World
GROUP of BASIN ARTISTS
March 12 to April 24, 2021
In the ongoing conversation we are all having with the world around us all the time, making art offers multisensory modes of expressing meaning and describing experience. When that conversation turns to the subject of the natural world, the methods and mediums of fibre-based art are especially well suited to the task. The artists in this exhibition were asked to create works considering ‘the natural world’ in their material and conceptual choices. The diversity of the works presented in the gallery for View Point, clearly illustrates that there are many different ways to think about that proposition.
Tuffet of Joy! Foot stool, felt, merino wool, hand dyed silk, cotton, thread, upholstery foam, plywood, antique claw feet, Carmen Ditzler
ART OF DECAY
DENNIS CHARLES
April 30 to June 12, 2021
Dennis Charles, Cree artist, was born in Grande Prairie, Alberta. He currently lives and works in Creston, BC, and has been actively pursuing his photography practice since 2005. This exhibition explores Charles’ near daily trips into the woods and the photographs of what he sees along the way. This sensitive documentation of natural phenomena is sometimes focused on things that Charles just finds particularly compelling: beach glass, rust, and almost anything in a state of decay, are some of the categories into which he collects his photographed specimens.
STRANGE MAGNETISM
HEATHER CLOSE AND SARAH NORDEAN
June 18 to July 31, 2021
During the earliest days of the pandemic, Heather Close and Sarah Nordean both had exhibitions on view in their respective galleries in Calgary. With the lockdown closures that disrupted so much of our public lives, both of these exhibitions pivoted to virtual platforms, and the two artists had occasion to discuss this strange experience together. They had been studio mates in the Painting program at what is now the Alberta University for the Arts, and in their conversation, they congratulated one another on their exhibitions, and then they devised a collaborative project that they could pursue together, even under the strange new conditions imposed on everyday life.
Wave Function, Acrylic on Panel, Heather Close & Sarah Nordean
ON AGING
LISA BENSCHOP, MIKHELA GRENIER, SHELLY LAMB, MAGGIE LEAL-VALIAS, MIA & ERIC, AARON SIDORENKO, DEAN SMALE
August 6 to September 11, 2021
Excerpt from interview via email between Curator Marnie Temple and Lisa Benschop. [Below]
As a way to begin, i’d like to invite you to describe your curatorial question(s)/premise/intention. maybe a way to consider that would be to think about questions like ‘why did you want to program this show in the gallery?’ or ‘so, what’s this show all about?’
After moving here permanently in 2018, I thought about that choice a lot. Seeking new friends and community that you can fit into causes a person to look around a lot. I noticed a lot of people in my age group and perhaps older. I did the research online and learned of a large retirement community here. "Did I just retire?" And what does that mean anyways!
After the gallery launched and we were faced with our first year being complete, I considered curating an exhibition that was personal to me. Aging. Aging was no longer a curiosity for me or something that is happening to my parents, it was a reality and happening to me. And what does ‘aging’ mean anyways!? Everyone ages everyday. It seems like we don't consider that we are aging until our bodies start showing it.
WWII vet #3, Oil/Acrylic on linen, Aaron Sidorenko
Ode to Edo (detail), Oil on canvas, Dean Smale
El & L’s Dining Room, Installation, Lisa Benschop
NOW I BECOME DEATH, DESTROYER OF WORLDS
JULYA HAJNOCZKY and IRENE RASETTI
September 17 to October 30, 2021
The exhibition’s title is a reference to a line from the Bhagavad Gita that was quoted by American theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer as he commented on witnessing the first tests of the atomic bomb. For both Hajnoczky and Rasetti, their work functions as a process of documenting the current moment – this time in history during which we are watching the daily destruction of the environment and the loss of species and whole ecosystems. Serving as documents and records, the works in this show offer the viewer a moment of reflection and an invitation to fall in love again with the wonder and beauty of our natural surroundings. Rasetti’s printed fabrics literally record the shapes and colours of the forest’s decay; Hajnoczky’s re-contextualized natural specimens are preserved for study, and for posterity. One role of the artist in any society, at any time, is to record and represent the most prescient meanings and ideas of their surroundings; in this exhibition, the viewer is confronted with striking evidence of our world’s precious and delicate natural order in its demise and destruction.
Still from video, Irene Rasetti
A hole in the shape of a seed, Julya Hajnoczky
BEYOND THE HORIZON
RUTH BIEBER, in collaboration with WIN DINN
November 5 to December 11, 2021
This exhibition features work by artist Ruth Bieber, who is blind, in collaboration with three local Creston artists, Win Dinn, Lisa Benschop and Marnie Temple. The original inspiration was for Ruth to have three vary different collaborative experiences with three very different sighted artists. The exhibition is colourful, with an invitation to ‘feel’ the art, literally and figuratively.
Black, Mixed media on canvas, Ruth Bieber