Bobbie Burgers is interested in the process of decay, transformation, and metamorphosis in nature. With a distinct style that merges abstraction with representation in increasing degrees, her work brings together instinctive compositions while revealing her precise powers of observation. Remarkable for their compositional rhythms, bold coloration, and sweeping gestural brushstrokes, Burgers’ paintings bring alive the fundamental quest to express something personal, subjective and emotive, in a poetic, abstract way.
Fred Herzog was born in Germany in 1930, and immigrated to Vancouver, BC in 1953. Throughout his career he worked almost exclusively with Kodachrome slide film, and only in the past decade did technology allow him to make archival pigment prints that match the exceptional colour and intensity of the Kodachrome slide. Herzog’s use of colour was unusual in the 1950s and 60s, a time when art photography was almost exclusively associated with black and white imagery. In this respect, his photographs can be seen as a pre-figuration of the “New Colour” photographers of the 1970s.
Shawn Hunt is a Heiltsuk artist born inWaglisla (Bella Bella), British Columbia.Hunt’s practice is directly informed by his Scottish, French and First Nations background and the visual culture and traditions that accompany it.He works with the traditional Northwest Coast design principle, known as formline, to create abstract, surreal, and sculptural artworks based on ancestral Heiltsuk Cosmology that often reference contemporary aboriginal life.Hunt is always seeking to push the boundaries of the art form, often combining non-traditional ideas with innovative uses of materials and motifs in his work.
Jack Kenna’s artistic practice extends fluidly across painting and sculpture, often incorporating found images, objects, and text. Drawing partially from his material surroundings, his compositions are highly considered and incorporate unconventional juxtapositions, uncanny backgrounds and close-up cropping of objects of subjective and sentimental value. Kenna also makes great use of the extensive cache of online imagery to develop a vocabulary of motifs that are constantly appearing, morphing, and reappearing in his practice. Kenna’s works incorporate a broad range of techniques allowing him to use varied methods of representation. As a young artist, he is comfortable merging imagery from the history of still life painting with the archive of cell phone photography, allowing him to create works that convey the paradoxes inherent in the contemporary experience.
