katie marie bruce | tandem inadequacies

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katie marie bruce, “Page from sixty six days,” 2024

cyanotype on kozo paper, hand-bound artist book (courtesy of the artist)

Opening Reception: Saturday, January 25, 2025, 6:00 PM  8:00 PM

There is no single language for grief. Any attempt to describe it, linguistically or visually, requires translation, a translation that often falls short. tandem inadequacies draws upon personal losses experienced by the artist and inadequate expressions of the resulting grief. Trained as a printmaker, Lethbridge-based artist katie marie bruce uses the intimacy of the written word and the form of the book in relating the gaps between grief and its rationalization.

Within the exhibition, bruce touches on internal impressions of grief and the cliché words used to make sense of those emotions. Glass sculptures of tissue boxes offer prints of not-so-consoling platitudes for visitors to take with them or leave behind. Like the other books in the shelves of the Gallery’s library, bruce’s three hand-made books are also able to be handled by viewers. Their delicate nature asks visitors to take a careful approach in handling the books, mirroring the care required when approaching grief.

Each hand-made book is created with cyanotypes and forms that encourage readers to consider how one holds grief: a Turkish map fold book that spills open; a Chinese coin purse book that requires reader intervention to understand; and a sewn book of over 50 floral cyanotypes tucked like correspondence into envelopes. The pale silhouettes of each cyanotype flower become a portal in blueprint form, an index that denotes each flower’s short presence before wilting, an imprint of the resulting absence. Here, bruce tries to find language where language does not adequately address loss; a cipher of her own making arranged in a rising and falling chronology.