"The magic of the street is the mingling of the errand and the epiphany." (Rebecca Solnit in Wanderlust: A History of Walking)
Urban Subjects - My first solo exhibition of 2016! This June 11th (2pm-4pm) I'll be having my opening reception at Deer Lake Gallery. The show will be open June 11 - July 2nd on Tuesdays to Saturdays from 12noon to 4pm.
I will be in attendance on the opening day as well as Saturday the 18th + Saturday the 25th in case you can't make it out to the opening! ...And FYI, Deer Lake Park is a fabulous picnicking location, so make a day of it! ;)
////Deer Lake Gallery - 6584 Deer Lake Ave, Burnaby - Free Parking & Admission////
Exhibition Statement:
The collages of Urban Subjects expose the places where the personal and public, the fragmented and integrated merge while offering a painterly representation of the light and texture found in our visual urban environments. With this example of her figurative collage work, artist Jessie McNeil contemplates the presence and disappearance of cultural signification and memory in our western cities today. She wonders, what can we learn about our cities from the pedestrian perspective? And how have theses built environments motivated our participation in public life?
Jessie McNeil’s process or journey towards these depictions of her fellow citizens have been described as oscillating between photography, painting and sculpture, resulting in intricate collage work. As McNeil travels through the city by bike or on foot, she gathers impressions of the urban place, through its people. These referential “digital sketches” are made with a camera, which are later used in the studio. Gradually, bits of paper and mixed media are cut and layered to recreate the figures she captures on the street. The medium of collage here reflects the transience of her subject matter, for while our everyday rituals are as ubiquitous and consistent as the production and consumption of mass media (printed or digital), they are also precious, fleeting and perhaps, in many ways, miraculous. These seemingly mundane encounters on the street are captured for a moment longer when frozen into her collages or assemblages. To McNeil, her psycho-geographic tools of scissors and camera are for both studying urban significance and the examination of figures and images in a landscape.
Jessie McNeil’s process or journey towards these depictions of her fellow citizens have been described as oscillating between photography, painting and sculpture, resulting in intricate collage work. As McNeil travels through the city by bike or on foot, she gathers impressions of the urban place, through its people. These referential “digital sketches” are made with a camera, which are later used in the studio. Gradually, bits of paper and mixed media are cut and layered to recreate the figures she captures on the street. The medium of collage here reflects the transience of her subject matter, for while our everyday rituals are as ubiquitous and consistent as the production and consumption of mass media (printed or digital), they are also precious, fleeting and perhaps, in many ways, miraculous. These seemingly mundane encounters on the street are captured for a moment longer when frozen into her collages or assemblages. To McNeil, her psycho-geographic tools of scissors and camera are for both studying urban significance and the examination of figures and images in a landscape.
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Huge thanks to the Burnaby Arts Council, Ewan McNeil, Conrad Sly, Greg Drapeau and Aimée Henny Brown for their support during the making of this exhibition!
Urban Subjects was made possible by the Vancouver Foundation’s DTES Small Arts Grant and The Hnatyshyn Foundation's William and Meredith Saunderson Prize For Emerging Artists, awarded in 2015.
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