Artists examine dimensions at The Triangle Gallery
The Triangle’s current show Inhabiting Spaces celebrates the International Art Exchange Program’s 10-year anniversary and explores architectural elements of various works that play with the notion of space. This show curated by Bozenna Wisniewska toured in Poland Portugal and Finland before arriving at The Triangle.
The exhibition features two artists exploring notions of 2-D space (Helena Hadala and Laurel Smith) and two artists experimenting with notions of 3-D space (Katie Ohe and Greg Payce). All are Calgary-based and internationally renowned.
Hadala’s work came out of a residency in rural Australia. Though she uses a limited colour palette for much of her mixed media work in this show her pieces display a textural and emotive complexity underneath an apparent austerity. Hadala was inspired by both Zen Buddhism and Australian Aboriginal art — in many of her pieces the intention is to express a non-attachment to form. This exploration of the spaces between materials is most readily conveyed through her Tabula Rasa series in which four different surfaces reference the elements. Hadala’s work requires an intimate contemplative frame of mind in order to fully appreciate their depth.
In contrast Smith plays with the Chinese designs that fuelled the esthetic behind rococo and baroque art. A singular organic motif is repeated several times as an experiment of how far one can take an idea — to test its limits. Smith’s intention is to combine the constrained western rectangle of painting and architectural design with an organic eastern motif. She uses clear and distinct colours that capture the viewer’s attention and focuses on the spaces around her work as much as the work itself.
Ohe is a well-known sculptor who has produced work for various institutions and spaces around Calgary including the University of Calgary. She gathers ideas and feelings from nature and observations of the interactions between spaces around her to construct her sculptures. Crowchild is an abstract representational piece prompted by images of baby birds crying out for food. Similarly Weeping Bees is related to Ohe’s empathy with a bee that had fallen to the ground with its legs kicking upwards. This is a dynamic piece. Along with her other “sculptural garden” installations Ohe encourages her viewers to play in her gardens to literally touch and interact with the work.
Payce’s multicoloured ceramic vessels in the Dwell series as well as his lenticular photography define spaces in playful ways. His monochromatic vessels in Passion sur ou Raison sur Passion elegantly uses the void space around the sculptures to construct an image of a man’s profile.
