A group show highlighting paper works and animations will be the final exhibit through which an art gallery asks ‘what stories do we tell?’
By “evoking the spirit world,” creating fictional tales or attempting to make sense of historical or current events, artists of the Stories That Animate Us exhibit reflect on themes such as culture, community, memory, death and identity.
“Storytelling lies at the heart of Stories That Animate Us,” noted a release for the show. “It draws from a wide range of collectively shared oral histories, knowledge systems and cosmologies, as well as personal memories, imaginings and dreams.”
The show’s artists include Joyce Wieland and the Royal Art Lodge as they explore the medium of drawing to stimulate the creative process; David Hockney “gleans from the world of fairy tales and fiction;” Robert Davidson and Amanda Strong spotlight Indigenous stories in order to rouse “potent acts of cultural reclamation and resilience within the colonialist context of Canada;” Francisco de Goya and Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo tackle and work through the ongoing traumas of war in their work; Marina Roy, Jérôme Havre, Cauleen Smith and Camille Turner utilize science fiction to “imagine new identities and ways of being;” and Ed Pien finds inspiration in the supernatural for its transformative potential.
The release also noted that Stories That Animate Us is organized and circulated by the Vancouver Art Gallery under the Across the Province program and is curated by Diana Freundl, senior curator and Zoë Chan, former assistant curator.
Stories That Animate Us, on tour from the Vancouver Art Gallery, will run at the Nanaimo Art Gallery on Commercial Street until April 7.
READ MORE: Juried art show invites submissions from Vancouver Island artists