Okanagan Print Triennial 2024
Kelowna Art Gallery, Kelowna, BC - To Oct 27
Founded in 2009 by Kelowna-based printmaker Briar Craig, the Okanagan Print Triennial has grown into a showcase for where printmaking is going and why it shows no signs of going away. Recent innovations in 3-D print-ing have reshaped the medium, while technological fatigue (to say nothing of the expense) has many artists returning to more organic, analog forms, like woodblock printing, monotype and collagraphy—all of which, and more, are on display in this engaging, at times inspirational, exhibition.
Now a group effort of the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan Campus, the Vernon Public Art Gallery and the Kelowna Art Gallery, this year’s triennial features 25 contributors, with 14 from Canada and three from the Okanagan. Though the work is of a high standard, there are, as always, some highlights, be that the formally innovative, the socially aware, or that balance known as both.
Alison Bigg’s #lostfoundsound (2023) is an artist’s book that speaks to the loss of empathic listening, as a result of information overload. Comprised of a 3-D-printed cover (a model kit’s parts sprue, containing pieces of an analog hearing aid) and American Sign Language diagrams, the book includes blind embossed titles to “slow down the reader.” Exit Strategies (2021) by Sylvan Hamburger began with doors salvaged from Vancouver house demos that the artist used to print onto found bedsheets. Similarly, Jenie Gao’s Negotiation Table: Cycle / Breaking and Making (2023) had the artist carving woodblocks into a Canadian-made, European knock-off table, producing a print from each end. Suffice it to say, these prints—displayed on the wall behind the table—have yet to reach a compromise.
