By Robin Laurence
JILL HO-YOU: LATENT MONUMENTS
Harcourt House Artist Run Centre, Edmonton. To Oct 3
In this mixed-media exhibition, experimental print artist Jill Ho-You brings together an unexpected array of etchings, drawings, bacterial culture and Petri dishes to examine the “cascading negative consequences” of human-driven climate change. While speculating on the enormity of such change, Ho-You also deploys the intimacy of her lines, forms and materials to speak to the unseen or scarcely apprehended elements that underlie all life on this planet. Both beautiful and unsettling, this work suspends us in an uncertain time between the past and the future.
ARTISTIC PAIRINGS
Herringer Kiss Gallery, Calgary. Sep 12 – Oct 10
This show mounts the works of creative couples side by side; it also gives us a privileged view into how these artists “influence, inspire and support” their mates. Chosen from the gallery’s stable and beyond, six Canadian couples are featured: Katie Ohe and Harry Kiyooka, Renée Duval and Dennis Ekstedt, Barbara Milne and Bill Laing, Genevieve Dionne and Ben Skinner, Laurel Johannesson and Marty Kaufman, and Nicole Collins and Michael Davidson. Works range from Duval’s hyper-realist paintings of impossible trees to Ohe’s abstract aluminum sculptures.