TRUCK Contemporary Art in Calgary Presents: "Veins" By Rita McKeough

"Veins" is a new interactive installation by artist Rita McKeough, that follows and builds on issues explored in her most recent works, "Wilderment", "Alternator", "The Lion’s Share" and "H". This work is motivated by McKeough’s sense of unease as it relates specifically to the ongoing planning and construction of the oil and gas pipelines being built across a fragile and vulnerable landscape. This work will look broadly at the sheer complications, multiplications and furtherance of the risks we take. The questioning of these processes will perhaps have an opening, and another layer of understanding of the vulnerability and complexities of the natural landscape.

Calgary-based audio, media installation and performance artist Rita McKeough has exhibited throughout Canada since the late 1970s. Her work has been featured in "Radio Rethink: Essays on Art, Sound and Transmission" (Banff Centre for the Arts, 1993) and "Caught in the Act: Canadian Women in Performance" (YYZ Books, 2004). (ML) Born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. McKeough studied printmaking and sculpture at the University of Calgary where she received her BFA. She went on to study at the NSCAD University where she was awarded her MFA. Her experience as a radio station disc jockey and drummer for bands led to her introduction of sound elements in her elaborate installations and later to the development of electronic and mechanical objects in interactive environments. She is currently in the band Sleepy Panther with her wonderful friend Richard Brown and teaching at The Alberta College of Art and Design. Rita insists that she has been fortunate to have the support and assistance of her friends and community to produce her work.