There have been times when I’ve walked out of a gallery scratching my head and wondering what the hell happened to produce such uninspiring, ugly art. When I walked out of the BFA on View ’06 exhibition at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, however, my head remained unscratched, my mind was racing, and a secret little smile crept to my mouth. This was the smile of knowing that some of the artists in the show will become well known in the not-so-distant future.
Case in point: Darryl Bank. Constantly pushing boundaries, Darryl Bank struts his stuff with Blow Into Fur, See Concentric Rings: The George Laverty Folio. The mixed media installation is made to look like a folio file about Dr. George Laverty, a professor of psychiatry at Queen’s in the 1960s who researched the effects of LSD. The video interview with Dr. Laverty is interspersed with swirling visuals and high frequency sounds that replicate the hallucinations experienced by his subjects. The prints and other items were part of a puzzle that only began to make sense much later, when I googled Laverty’s name.
Bitsy Knox is another successful artist in the making. Her contribution to the exhibition, Pouce Coupe, In My Dreams!, is a multimedia work that combines a construction paper model of a town—complete with buildings sitting atop a “snowy” ceiling-tile landscape—with three videos that create an active landscape. The layering of three videos—a young woman walking across the screen, the cartoon landscape and a panoramic shot of a rural, barren winter scene—combine to create a work that examines the interaction of the dweller with the natural and man-made environment.
Heather Savage also examines the way people interact with the world in her piece Constructing a Home. She affixes to the wall technical drawings and an explanation of the keystone’s role in the design of the Roman arch. A found-art sculpture made from various items associated with home sits on a pedestal below. A used tube of lipstick, bread bag ties, Canadian Tire money, a door handle, dryer lint, and other items are assembled into a keystone of sorts. These items represent the physical space of home and the minutiae of everyday life.
Sarah Smith’s mixed media and sound installation titled Encasing Experience: Skin Piece I is at first glance interesting, but not particularly engaging. However, the audio component, consisting of repeated muffled sounds, draws the viewer back to think about what exactly is going on, and what the piece means. Physically consisting of three cylinders covered in coloured sand—one red, one mocha, one yellow ochre—the minimalism is compelling, and the questions are endless.
Guest juror Nell Tenhaaf, a fine art professor at York University and a respected electronic media artist, did a commendable job selecting the pieces.
BFA on View ’06 showcases the incredible talent of a new generation of artists. Each work offers a unique perspective and experiments with new techniques and applications of media. The view from here sure does look fine.
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be ed, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to [email protected].