Brendan Fernandes, Skeena Reece, Barbara Astman, Winnie Truong and Tia Halliday: Second Skin

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Glenbow Museum, "Second Skin," 2019

SECOND SKIN Organized by Glenbow Curated by Sarah Todd

Second Skin is an exhibition of contemporary art that features work by five Canadian artists who explore the transformative potential of adornment, costume and disguise. Brendan Fernandes’ and SkeenaReece’s work both involve the use of masks, with Fernandes photographing the insides of a collection of African masks while Reece’s contributes a mask of Marlon Brando in the guise of the Godfather. (Her work honours the actor’s commitment to First Nations peoples when he declined his best actor award for the Godfather at the 45th Academy Awards.) Renowned photographer Barbara Astman’s large-scale photographs address aging and identity and Winnie Truong uses watercolour and pencil to create portraits of faces that are intricately covered by fantastical technicolour hairstyles. Finally, Calgary’s Tia Halliday literally inhabits her large scale fabric paintings- bodies and limbs poking out of the frame of the picture.

These works highlight how the ways in which we cover the body have the potential to reveal as much as conceal.