Aileen Penner: The Promise Of Something Grand

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Aileen Penner, "The Promise Of Something Grand," 2018

OPENING RECEPTION FRIDAY OCT 5, 7 - 9pm

Inspired and curious about the ideas at the time of her father’s working life as a civil engineer in the 1970s, this solo exhibition is a series of cyanotypes and a video installation that examines the grief and chaos associated with such contested approaches to altering the land. This work also examines the fracture of family with the violent death of her father in a car accident in 1988. Through the language of poetry (hers) and blueprint making (her father’s), the artist attempts a conversation about building these kinds of mega-projects and where to place all this collective grief.

Aileen Penner is an emerging mixed-media artist and encaustic (beeswax) painter. She works at the intersection of art and environmental science and is the 2018-19 Kent Harrison Arts Council Artist in Residence at Harrison Hot Springs. Her background is as a writer and poet and it is her love of language, science and nature that informs and inspires her work. Themes in Aileen’s work centre on loss: devastation of species, family fracture, trauma and where to place our collective chaos and grief. She is heavily influenced and curious about scientific ways of understanding the world. Aileen has exhibited at the North Vancouver Community Art Gallery, Gulf of Georgia Cannery, Camosun College, The Fortune Gallery and the VIVO Media Arts Centre in Vancouver.  Aileen holds a Diploma in Visual Arts from Camosun College and a Masters of Environmental Studies from York University.