This exhibit explores abstract, imagined and recollected spaces through the process of gathering and reconstructing. The artists presented here explore the changing interconnectedness between time and place, people and space, and the expression of these concepts through formalist concerns, such as line and shape. This interconnectedness provides perspective on who we are in relation to our personal histories and where we are within the context of the present. Reimagining a space allows us control to reinvent and repurpose meaning where we might not otherwise hold that power, and provides the adaptability to change our relationship to our environment as a way of understanding our way forward.

Growing up in South Korea, then Fiji, then Canada, Elle Chae explores the notion of home, through its occupants and their relationship with their environment. Using personal memories as well as the stories of other families as starting material for her thought process, the results are fragmented images that lack a definition of time. Questioning the idea of necessity versus desire, Chae presents a concept of home as experience instead of place.

Andrew Beck’s paintings are reminiscent of a century gone by that blends the elements of nostalgia with uncertainty. Through the process of gathering, cropping and reassembling images, he creates scenes that unsettle the familiar narrative that those individual parts connote. He describes knowing his paintings are complete as, “when they are able to convey a moment or sensation of uncertainty, remoteness or a feeling that something is out of place.” The figures, in relation to each other and their surroundings feel like they’ve been taken out of context and the viewer is left pondering the meaning of the scene.

Unlike the work of Andrew Beck, the often inexplicable narratives of Atticus Gordon are not reminiscent of a specific time but blend the notion of past and present in a way that suggests a fictional world that is somehow anchored in our reality. Working from collected images, archival imagery and personal photographs, Gordon constructs narratives that appear illogical but still connected to the human experience. Influenced by history and technology, he questions the role that imagination plays on our understanding of our existence and purpose.

Amanda Lloyd is an abstract painter that focuses on the relationship between shapes, forms and space, using colour to evoke a sense of time, place or object. With a specific interest in process, Lloyd layers, removes, rubs and scrapes the medium in order to produce the depth seen in her work. Lloyd’s artwork differs from the other works in the show, as it is free of recognizable forms, and instead she reflects her themes through her expressive titles. She is providing you with context to the subject, like that of a writer, but still allowing the viewer to add their own experience when interacting with her work.

Acknowledgements:

Curator: Stephanie Germano
Exhibition Assistance: Siobhan Locke
French Translation: Marie-Camille Lalande
Installation: Mark Garland and Dan Austin

Partners:
BEING Studio
Studio Sixty Six

Image: Elle Chae, When The Year Is Up, 2022, oil on wood, 48 x 60 in

Artist will be present in the gallery : Thursday, April 18th, 5-7pm

Ottawa artist Elle Chae presents her latest series of new works at Project SPACE, an art incubator space for WALL SPACE GALLERY.

Elle Chae’s practice deals with the meaning of home as a vital, yet transitory place, which is defined by its occupants and their ordinary interactions. Her focus has been increasingly on exploring the concept of non-deliberate, relational community structures, particularly in terms of how individuals interact with each other and their environment. Chae considers painting’s expressive nature as a tool to invent and re-invent apprehension-filled narratives within the local environment.

In “Must Be the Neighbours”, Chae’s focus shifts to the exterior of the home as she notices unwanted, curb-side objects during daily neighbourhood walks with her toddler. Fascinated by a loss of interest in these items, Chae observes that a change in their placement to the exterior of the home immediately transforms belongings, influenced by the dweller’s memory and personality, into meaningless things. Thus, she questions the artificial and fragile boundary between the exterior and the interior. Regardless of the intention, she realizes how relocation can drastically reshape the collective view and atmosphere of any neighbourhood. As a contribution to this interplay, she recreates her own neighbourhood in this work, inviting viewers to connect with the familiar, yet foreign, urban landscapes. 

The process involved documenting changes around her neighbourhood, focusing on the daily walks to her studio in her community of Vanier, Ottawa. Fluctuations were as small as the shifting of leaves shuffled by passersby on the street to a house disappearing after a fire. She often replaced objects and persons from one place onto different scenes or combines the same scenes in different times; resulting in a sense of constant and accelerated change. 

Chae continues to explore different ways of considering the mark-making process, embodying different degrees of physicality and intensity. This reflects the wide range of techniques used to accentuate the material presence of oil paint and the scalable impact of colours and tones on the viewers’ sensory systems. Chae often overlays different scenes on one pictorial plane to create a psychological space that highlights painting as a place for contemplation where meaning is formed based on interpretation, synthesized experience, context and inventiveness on the part of the viewer and the artist.

The artist gratefully acknowledges the City of Ottawa’s Creation and Production Fund for Professional Artists for the support of this exhibition. 

Artist Reception: Friday, September 14, 6-8pm

https://www.wallspacegallery.ca/events/2018/9/14/x-ten-year-anniversary