Apr. 29, 2009 - Issue #706: Nevermore
BFA Graduate Exhibit: Machine bred
Ars Ex Machina is unspectacular, but still shows promise for the future
Many of the students are working in abstraction, maintaining ties to the abstract expressionist school that Edmonton is well known for. Galia Kwanty's "Ocean" is a large-scale painting, immersed in a blue and green marine palette that is simple in concept but well-executed. Hui Yang's "Flow I – III," three acrylic-on-paper works, have a visceral quality that I have come to appreciate from the University. The unsettling use of swirled pinks and blues sit on top of the paper-wrapped canvases like an oil spill—at once toxic, putrid and unnaturally beautiful. Jennifer Poburan's "The Thinking Spot" is not as visceral as Yang's work, but her muted colour palette makes her use of canvas, paper and other mixed-media interesting and engaging. Not afraid to damage the surface of her work, Poburan seems to have a knack for engaging her viewers with a sense of imperfection that meditatively draws the eye around the work.
Some of the artists in the exhibition address the issue of space with more directness. Martina MacFarlane's "Size 7s" shows the interior of a kitchen with a shadow of a person sitting by the toaster at the kitchen table. Though the features of the shadow-person are visible, MacFarlane manages to communicate a sense of distance and melancholy between the portrait subject and the ordinary space she occupies. Alternately, Dave Hiemstra's "KOI" uses a similar technique to MacFarlane, but his choice of colour and the dynamism of brushwork give his work a graphic and cinematic tone.
There were a few works that seemed to fall outside of the two major themes within this exhibition. Jeanette Egan's "Untitled" is a small diorama that has viewers peer through a suspended lens, through a set of doors into a bathroom. The discrepancy between the view with and without the lens draws attention to the act of looking in art. James Boychuk-Hunter's "Land Study I," meanwhile, is a small, cracked black acrylic and graphite work that looks like a model-cast of a landscape, perhaps the crests of mountains. His other work, "Collection," is a small grid on a ledge, covered in black dust (similar to flocking),which bleeds onto the floor into a small pile that is both unbecoming and curious.
The title, Ars Ex Machina (Art out of the Machine), is unironically apt. Each of the graduates demonstrates what they have learned over the past four years, an important part of art education. There is nothing surprising here, nor anything disappointing. Ars Ex Machina is a preface of work to come, a small taste of what Edmonton might be in for over the next 10 years. Hopefully, each student will take all the rules they learned and expand upon them, perhaps even break them. V
Until Sat, May 9
Ars Ex Machina
Works by the 2009 BFA class
FAB Gallery (112 st & 89 ave)
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