East Gallery

Venus Spreads Her Wings

Catherine Stewart

September 22 – November 4, 2017

This exhibition is a selection of images from three series of photo-based artworks. Using the zoological collections at the University of British Columbia as source material for her artistic practice, Stewart focused on the colour differences between the sexes of particular bird species and “the ceaseless, tragic, yet beautiful cycle of sex, birth, life and death that plays out for all species in response to both intrinsic and external forces and the underlying laws of nature”.  Also included are images printed on metallic photographic paper that juxtapose details of plumage with close-ups  of sensually appealing clothing . Over the centuries clothing design has liberally borrowed from the avian world both directly with the use of plumage as adornment, and indirectly by mimicking colour textures and patterns.

West Gallery

Sway

Katherine Pickering

September 22 – November 4, 2017

Recently Pickering has extended her art practice from painting to include sculpture, the inspiration for which comes from her investigation into the rich intersection between the history of abstraction in painting and our experience of night’s darkness. The combination of thick layers of acrylic paint on canvases which are then manipulated to create various forms are meant to reference guideposts in the nighttime landscape.