HerWork: Beyond Pictures and Pantyhose
Warning: A non-numeric value encountered in /home/multicen/public_html/wp-content/plugins/slider-image/slider.php on line 2349
HerWork: Beyond Pictures and Pantyhose
Art plays on emotion, preference, comprehension and perspective, mix in the diverse mediums that these notions were delivered in HerWork and you have the recipe for success. The focus for the HerWork exhibit this month was on women and this year we brought you women that inspire beyond the confines of our gallery.
Artist, writer and filmmaker Alexis Marie Chute brought the award-winning exhibit The Quiet Rebuild to HerWork which took us on a photographic pilgrimage of women healing. Bravely sharing her personal story, Alexis releases her book Expecting Sunshine: A Journey of Grief, Healing, and Pregnancy After Loss this April and has a documentary being completed based on her book where she recounts losing a child in childbirth and her emotional experiences in the pregnancy that followed. Find her book in our General Store.
Kasie Campbell won the Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture award for her MFA sculpture work Scopophilia. She brought to HerWork Upheaval: A Proportion of the Mother for the Birds, a fleshy set of sculptures meant to invoke that psychological charge between revolt and beauty. Kasie’s work instills a feeling of self-consciousness and unease with her work, this for Kasie arrests how vulnerable we often feel when being viewed. Kasie has done sculpting in public spaces, used multi-media, and has created pieces that make the viewer more of a voyeur. This allows her to explore how some people draw power from being viewed while others retract from being viewed and explores her own anxiety and vulnerability.
Becky Thera brought to HerWork Keep Going, a revelatory look at the challenges of being a single-parent in today’s society. As an MFA student her work delves into topics such as trauma and sexual violence using videos and photographs. Her embroidery, an artistic style that has been in her family for generations, she uses to explore the role of tradition, craft and feminism in art. Her embroidery has inspired a collaboration on a fashion project. Her diverse choice of mediums from volatile to delicate create art that allows the viewer to connect with the message a various emotional levels.
Lucille Frost takes her art to new heights in her installation for HerWork titled Portrait of the Artist as Landscape. Her relationship with landscapes is the inspiration for her work. As current curator for the gallery, Lucille uses her Bachelor of Art and Design degree to work on projects such as Special Arts Coordinator for Visual Arts Alberta, running her own business, and volunteering in the local art scene.
Kun Chen brought to HerWork Childhood I, II, III a study on identity and individuality. Here on a study exchange program with her University back at home, Kun Chen has been able to work on two degrees, one following in her father’s footsteps, in Forestry and Agriculture from Fujian China, and the other in Art, here at the University of Alberta. Her parents are very supportive of her exploring art allowing Kun Chen to explore a variety of mediums in which she can express her ideas about cultural diversity and the delicate balance between modernist and Asian traditional values. Her studies in science are what help her delve on such a microscopic level, into her art and her perceptions.
Shirley Serviss brought the conversation provoking piece Baglady Barbie to HerWork, an enclosed diorama with articles about gender concerns on the exterior pulled from prominent newspapers. Not a stranger to tackling hard topics, Shirley Serviss has been a champion for the use of arts in healthcare programs. Her diverse career has seen her as a professional writer, working in broadcasting, journalism, public relations, and a freelance writer and editor. At one point she studied theology with the intention of becoming a hospital chaplain. She works on projects like Artist’s Urban Village, Friends of University Hospital and Cross Cancer’s Arts and Health Program. Her work strives to give people permission to express their own experiences and emotions.
This is what inspires us about our gallery, it isn’t just a bunch of pictures or sculptures, but a collection of experiences and people that allow us to see ourselves differently, the world differently, and incites us to do more.
Join us for our next exhibit by Jesse Thomas, The Order of Things running April 3 – May 29.