DaveandJenn: A Natural History of Islands

Nickle Galleries
University of Calgary
October 20 – December 17, 2016

Exhibition Tour with DaveandJenn: Thursday, November 24, 12 pm to 1 pm
Curated by Christine Sowiak

A Natural History of Islands submerges us. We enter an aqueous cave, a dark liquid realm lit by dayglow suns and an unsettled moon, populated by strange beings. Familiar and enticing but also disquieting, even horrifying, these beings float between our reality and their place in the landscape. At risk of being literal, they function as islands – discrete and finite worlds of their own that are also connected, springing from a shared ground that, while physical, is far defined. The gallery space loses its corners, its bounderies become ambiguous and in this uncertainty we are grounded only by our relationships to these figure/landscape hybrids.

These are the sculptures of DaveandJenn. A Natural History of Islands is the first exhibition by the collaborative duo of Jennifer Saleik and David Foy ot show sculpture exclusively…This evolution in the natural history of DaveandJenn is seamless, as their practice has grown out of painting, albeit paintings that physically create layered space instead of just its illusion. Here, we do not peer into landscape or space, consider its stories from the outside through the window of painting. We become part of the illusion, meet their work face to face on a visceral plane where ideas become flesh and stories, spatial.

Christine Sowiak, Curator

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Exhibition Catalogue available at TrépanierBaer Gallery

Image Credit:
DaveandJenn: A Natural History of Islands, installation view at Nickle Galleries, 2016
Photo Courtesey: M.N. Hutchinson