Opening Reception: "Home Making" - Susan Barton-Tait

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"Home-Making" exhibition image

Susan Barton-Tait. "Home-Making" exhibition image.

Home Making is an exhibition of current and past work by Prince George artist Susan Barton-Tait. Educated in Winnipeg at the height of the emerging art scene there, Barton-Tait’s exhibition in the Rustad Galleria is an investigation of personal history focusing on her experiences of early married life and motherhood in Winnipeg. Barton-Tait and her family were living in a converted cottage close to the Red River nicknamed, “The Smallest House Known to Man”, which came to represent the focal point of her existence at that time as well as being the site of many life changing experiences. In order to represent the house, Barton-Tait turned to one of her favoured mediums, creating casts of the walls in varying sizes with handmade paper. Paired with these versions of fragile and indelible walls, Barton-Tait has created several videos documenting the kinds of tasks that everyday living require. We witness hands folding laundry, hammering nails, making sandwiches and washing sinks. The actions remind us of the daily chores we too must do, yet through the repetition they are rendered almost meaningless and benign, reinforcing their flavour of domesticity in the process.