Karin Jones & Amy Malbeuf: Labour’s trace

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Photo credit: Anthony McLean

Karin Jones, "Yoke," 2017

detail, steel, corn, sterling silver, brass, leather, handmade brass mount on wood panel. 24"x 48"x 12"

Reception: Saturday, February 15, 2:00 – 4:00 pm, artists’ tour and talk at 1:00 pm.

Opening the year’s exhibitions, Richmond Art Gallery is pleased to present the works of Karin Jones and Amy Malbeuf. The artists examine cultural identity and historical narratives through the objects they make by transforming and subverting traditional and contemporary materials and processes. Working with a disparate assembly of metal, leather, hominy, beads, tarpaulins, or animal and human hair, their works are contemplations on labour — reflecting ideas connected to livelihood and histories of colonization.

Jones, of African-Nova Scotian heritage, examines the impact of historical narratives in shaping identity in her installation of eight works comprising body of work. Drawing from extensive metalsmithing experience, Jones created the works as objects of adornment with deliberate references to restraints used during the period of enslavement of African peoples in North America. By conflating the contrary functions of jewelry and objects of restraint, Jones engenders a palpable tension in the spare works.

Métis artist, Malbeuf, presents a dozen individual works bound together by a firm observance of traditional Indigenous practices adeptly shaped to reflect contemporary ideas and concerns. Malbeuf employs polyethylene tarpaulin as she might have customarily worked with animal hide – stretching, beading it or creating fringe for clothing. In many of the works she employs beadwork and animal hair tufting — skills learned from other women sharing their cultural knowledge, working side by side. Hair tufting has become an important part of Malbeuf’s art practice, and like beadwork, it is labour intensive requiring a deep commitment to the art form.

Notions of labour thread through the works of Jones and Malbeuf grounded in concepts of livelihood – in ways of knowing, making, and living. While their works are charged with historical references their ideas exist in the contemporary world. In confronting historic misrepresentations with expressions of pride and strength, the artists disable colonial narratives and their destructive legacies and present other ways of knowing through their labour.

Karin Jones is an interdisciplinary artist with a background in jewellery. She has a 20-plus year career as a goldsmith and independent artisan. She has specialized in several rare techniques, including Damascene. Jones received an MFA in Craft from NSCAD University in 2018. Her work has been shown across Canada, and in the United States, Japan, and Finland. She is currently Department Head of Jewellery Art & Design at Vancouver Community College.

Amy Malbeuf is from Rich Lake, Alberta. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally. Malbeuf has participated in numerous international artist residencies. She holds a MFA in Visual Art from the University of British Columbia Okanagan. In 2016 Malbeuf received a Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award and a William and Meredith Saunderson Prize for Emerging Artists in Canada from the Hnatyshyn Foundation.