A double feature, <em>FLUX</em> and <em>STASIS</em>, is now showing at the Artery Gallery in East Campus Hall. Held by the University of Waterloo’s fourth-year fine arts class, the pop-up show is split into two halves that will exhibit for one week each. The works range in subject matter and media, focusing on in-progress pieces for larger bodies of work. </p>
Paintings are widely represented in FLUX, but with interesting material twists. Madzia McCutcheon’s set of small paintings have been constructed by sewing acrylic “skins” together and stretching them over wood frames. “I spread acrylic paint over a non-stick surface with a palette knife. Once it dries, I peel the paint from the surface. The result is a flexible skin of paint that I can manipulate to create various forms,” said McCutcheon.
Similarly, Jennifer Byrnes’s paintings are an investigation into creating rust on canvases using salt, copper, ink, and resin. The material limits of painting are ultimately pushed by Laurie-Lynn McGlynn’s Fusion-Reconstruction series, which combine acrylic paint, wire mesh, and sheet metal into three-dimensional abstractions.
“The best way to describe it is hybrid. It’s not completely a painting and it’s not necessarily a sculpture either — it’s sort of a combination of both,” said McGlynn. “I describe it in the way that it’s made, so the process I went through to create the work is what gives it a voice. I think that’s how people will be able to understand the work and what it’s trying to say.”
Another eye-catching addition to FLUX are Margaret Gissing’s ink experiments, Dreams of Dust: Series. “My work has to do with chaos, order, and the relationship between them, especially how we as people try to find order within chaos so we can rationalize. The ink represents chaos, it involves very little control. I layer geometries that are inspired by certain points within the piece so they kind of resemble constellations,” said Gissing. “This is all part of a process where I’m just trying everything I can within the constraints of my materials…. That’s really important for pushing my work further and further into something more refined.”
Other paintings in the show feature three dimensional components, QR codes, and large-scale geometric renderings that reference architecture. More traditional styles are present within FLUX as well, such as Zofia Glab’s politically charged painting Reserved, and Cheryl Waugh’s haunting series that depicts a number of lonely houses, elevated on wooden support structures, and placed in what appears to be a barren wasteland.
Next to painting, sculpture is also prominent within the space. Teghan Dodd’s clay Embrace stands next to McGlynn’s massive pieces and Sofia Roy’s Listen, a small, mobile-like structure with dozens of hanging paper flowers made from sheet music. Near the center of the gallery space is Anastasia Zaiats’ interactive installation, Objectation, an assortment of inviting objects that have been filled with concrete.
“The way I approached it is you have these objects, they’re all pre-owned and pre-loved … it was important for them to have a history so that now they’ve served their purpose and I’m taking away their functionality. They’re hard, they’re fossilized, they’re dead now,” said Zaiats. “It really translates to the full understanding of the piece when someone can touch it and interact with it… Interactive art is important — you can enhance the experience of art with something that gets the audience involved.”
The second half of the show, STASIS, will be in the Artery Gallery from Nov. 2-8.
