Mimesis: Robert Kelly and Tanis Saxby

Reception: September 13th, 5 – 8pm

A newcomer to the Vancouver gallery scene, Parker Projects launches their fall exhibition season with Mimesis, reintroducing Vancouver to the sophisticated post-minimalist abstract works of renowned New York artist Robert Kelly. As a complement and counterpoint, the exhibit includes the intimately abstract works of Vancouver sculptural ceramicist Tanis Saxby. Both artists, by means of their nuanced and intuitive processes, produce works that transcend their forms, offering rich sensorial depth to the attending viewer.

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Robert Kelly, "Palimpsest," 2016, oil/mixed media on canvas, 43.5" x 28"

Robert Kelly builds up his canvases, creating a palimpsest with layers of paint and gloss upon paper: vintage posters and printed ephemera gathered during his travels. Through his painterly marks, lyrical geometrics, and interlacing patterns, Kelly transforms and restates his forms, echoing his own gestures so each painting relates a form to an earlier version of itself. Drawn from several bodies of work, the pieces in this exhibition reflect the vision of an artist whose aesthetic language is so steadfast that a painting from 2009 remains in unbroken dialogue with a work from 2016.

Kelly studied painting at Harvard University and has exhibited internationally. His works can be found in corporate and private collections internationally and at museums throughout the United States. He lives and works in New York. His first exhibition in Vancouver was with Sarah Dobbs in 1996.

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Tanis Saxby, "Jade," 2018, porcelain, jade, stainless steel

Tanis Saxby's sculptures are evocative of nature: simultaneously bone-like and botanical, alluding to the undulations of the female body. By carving and manipulating the cream-white porcelain surface, Saxby generates line, shadow, volume and space, sculpting both material and the space around it. The textures and deliberate cracks within the surface are gestural, rendering a sense of captured tectonic movement in her quiet forms.

Saxby began her career as an apprentice before studying at the University of Victoria and Kootenay School of the Arts. She was awarded the A.I.R. Vallauris, an international residency in France. Her works, exhibited internationally, are collected privately throughout Canada, the U.S. and Europe. She lives and works in Vancouver.