Colleen Heslin, "Needles and Pins," Esker Foundation, Calgary, Jan. 23 to May 8, 2016

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There’s a push and pull in Colleen Heslin’s quilt-like paintings, a pull to examine the undulating dyes and the rolling seams that stitch together second-hand fabrics used as surface and support. Yet these same chromatic stains and opposing fabrics push you back to make sense of the illusory depth and the ambiguous but evocative compositions. It’s a hypnotic cycle that makes this exhibition a compelling experience. 

Curator Naomi Potter has coupled Heslin’s work with a survey of Jack Bush paintings, a pairing that gives both shows added conceptual and critical depth. Heslin’s process of recovering discarded raw canvas and linen fragments she hand-dyes and sews together before stretching over a wood strainer is redolent with critical implications. She lays claim to portions of painting and craft, undermining perceived hierarchies of object making and gender, and, in the process, creates a greater whole.

Heslin is the Vancouver-based winner of the prestigious 2013 RBC Canadian Painting Competition. She is represented by the Monte Clark Gallery and cites French artist Sonia Delaunay’s work, and rag quilts as jumping off points. The rhythm and pattern evident in pieces such as Not Me and Monochrome bear this out. So too does Heslin’s process, which considers quilting, sewing and textiles in relation to painting and perceptions of domestic labour. The trompe-l’oeil created by the puckered dye and uneven stains speaks to post-painterly abstraction. The surfaces of the works are completely flat. Grey, in a variety of gradient tones, contrasted against blocks of colour, becomes a dynamic element.

Heslin’s titles hint at narrative, but also compound the ambiguity of her compositions.  Her painting, Ms. Pacman, seems to include the video game’s corridors of sustaining pellets, whereas the rich depth of Sweet Potato is seemingly a reference to colour. The eponymous canvas, Needles and Pins, is titled in reference to a 1964 Searchers LP, a common find in the vinyl bins of the second-hand stores Heslin frequented for fabrics during her MFA studies at Concordia University in Montreal. This sourcing of material is a resonant gesture toward the excesses of consumer culture, while also achieving a Greenbergian economy of means in the creation of her colour fields.

It’s a pleasure to sort through the various threads connecting Heslin’s work to the history of art, economy and the creation of aesthetic objects. Her juxtaposition with Bush makes it tempting to place the artists in antagonistic gender opposition – the brash heroic masculine of abstract expressionism versus the domestic arts of sewing and quilting. However, there’s actually resonance in the sensuous generosity of these artists and their shared commitment to craft and material harmony as they push their respective boundaries.

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