"TRACES": Fantasy Worlds & Tales of Truth -- Winter Season Opening

Join us for the opening of this new exhibition featuring the work of three rising stars of the Canadian contemporary drawing scene: Daniel Barrow, Alison Norlen and Ed Pien. TRACES | Fantasy Worlds & Tales of Truth is on view at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria from January 18 – April 13, 2013.

Like the work of all good storytellers, the artists in this exhibition captivate the viewer with their imagined worlds informed by eerily familiar narratives. Through each artist’s distinct vision of humanity, these illusory spaces—in some cases haunted by either memory or mythology—reflect back to us ugliness, despair, complexity, beauty, opulence, and frivolity.

What distinguishes the work of Daniel Barrow, Alison Norlen, and Ed Pien is not just that they use drawing as their primary means of creation for these stories, but that they push the parameters and possibilities of what drawing can be by testing its material, spatial, and thematic considerations. They take in the world through their own unique lens, filter it through their imagination and private thoughts, and send it back out into public space, having constructed for us a new world through drawing. Our role as the viewer is to read these works with the same curious impulse as the maker. We are asked to seek out and participate in the narratives as active agents, investigating the traces left and lines made.

The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria is excited to offer a rigorous course of special events and programs in affiliation with this exhibition, starting with our Winter Season Opening on January 18 and extending through February and March including artist talks, drop in tours and a series of workshops led by Montreal artist-group the Mere Phantoms. Visit www.aggv.ca for full details.

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Tickets: Admission by Donation.