NOVEMBER 2011

Our November post presents a round-up of influential art exhibits held in Vancouver, Victoria and Belligham during November, December and January. Many thanks to Mia Johnson and Allyn Cantor for the original reviews.

David Mayrs: After That All Hell Broke Loose
Trench Contemporary Art
Vancouver – Oct 20-Nov 12, 2011

Billed as “the controversial early paintings of Vancouver artist David Mayrs,” After That All Hell Broke Loose includes the paintings by Vancouver artist David Mayrs that drew the attention of Vancouver police and led to a court case in the mid-1960s. The Trench Gallery provides a rare opportunity to witness artwork reflecting the deep social changes of the period. Read more


Lesley Dill’s Poetic Visions
Whatcom Museum
Bellingham – Oct 23-Mar 4, 2012

Lesley Dill’s innovative art practice combines elements of language, poetry, performance and multi-media visual art to explore themes of faith and spirituality through the human form and its coverings. Metaphoric imagery in Dill’s installations illuminates aspects of the diversity of faith traditions and the underlying notions of transcendental experience. Read more


Studies in Decay
Or Gallery
Vancouver – Oct 29-Dec 10, 2011

Studies in Decay is a new group exhibit at the Or Gallery. Dark and intense, the images propose to examine realities of contemporary experience in the spirit of Walter Benjamin’s theorem that the world continuously moves towards decay. It features work by Raymond Boisjoly, an Aboriginal artist living and working in Vancouver; Jordy Hamilton, a Vancouver-based artist known for conceptual installations as well as for paintings copied from images in National Geographic; and Laura Piasta, a Vancouver artist currently living in Sweden and Berlin. Read more


Nature, Knowledge and the Knower
Satellite Gallery
Vancouver – Oct 29-Jan 14, 2012
Subtitled James L. Clark Archives and the Construction of Habitat Dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History, this exhibit offers unprecedented access to the work of James L. (Lippit) Clark (1883-1969). The Vancouver exhibition presents three dramatic panoramas enlarged from the original shots taken with Kodak Cirkut cameras in Kenya between 1920 and 1930. A second part of the exhibit can be seen online at www.natureknowledgeknower.com   Read more


Jerry Pethick
Simon Fraser University Gallery
Burnaby – Nov 5-Dec 17, 2011

SFU Gallery has mounted a show of the fascinating, inexplicable artwork of Hornby Island artist Jerry Pethick subtitled Works 1968-2003 from Collections on Hornby Island. A combination of photography, drawing, sculpture, assemblage, collage, installation and optical devices, Pethick’s sculptural montages address optics and illusory space. Read more


Robert Orchardson: Endless façade
Contemporary Art Gallery
Vancouver – Nov 18-Jan 15, 2012

British sculptor Robert Orchardson exhibits his ephemeral work in London, Birmingham, Dundee, Dublin, Munich, Berlin, Rome and Chicago among other cities. Endless façade (2011) was organized in conjunction with Ikon Gallery, Birmingham and created in response to Isamu Noguchi’s stage sets for the 1955 Royal Shakespeare Company production of King Lear. Orchardson constructed huge monochrome wall pieces, a jigsaw of interlocking triangular shapes, that serve as backdrops for the highly-coloured open-work structures. Read more


Greg Snider
Deluge Contemporary Art
Victoria – Jan 27-Feb 25, 2012
Models for the Public Sphere: Tar Sands, Aircraft, Holocausts, showcases models for projects by Greg Snider, a Vancouver sculptor and installation artist. Snider’s artwork has included sculpture, performance design, models, drawings and videos, as well as models. His models, the feature of this exhibit, originally accompanied formal proposals for larger, site-specific artworks. His recent models serve to illustrate and underscore issues of global concern. Read more


Please find full copies of these reviews as well as image credits in Preview, The Gallery Guide. All work reproduced coutesy of Preview.