Richmond BC, Canada #richmondartgallerybc
The idea of the hole is a potent point of access for Vanessa Brown’s evocative new solo exhibition That Other Hunger, which features a series of video works, textiles, sculptures, and sound. Brown mines the depths of this surprisingly rich subject matter in her eclectic research that ranges from the Pantheon’s oculus and geographical craters and caves to celestial black holes and the body’s orifices.
Reflecting on the themes that flow through her multifaceted new body of work, Brown describes an early enthralment with the Looney Tunes portable hole. In this animated universe, the hole alternates between objecthood and void. In its object state, it can be picked up and placed or thrown like a disc against a wall. In its void state, it offers the immediacy of moving seamlessly from one dimension to another. The idea of holes, not as empty spaces but as matter, brings Brown’s focus to the black holes that populate our surrounding galaxies—these holes comprise mass so dense that they twist gravity, buckling time and space.
Inspired by such collapses of physical and temporal boundaries, Brown invites us on a journey through the portal of That Other Hunger. Visitors enter into an atmospheric environment that overflows with a sense of magic and mystery. The installation encompasses original work and found footage on various types of holes, spanning from the minute to the meta. Brown offers reflections on such questions as the relativity of time in conjunction with the very human desire to stop its passing. As much a philosophical and existential journey as it is an artistic one, That Other Hunger oscillates between inner and outer worlds, transforming the hole into a powerfully imagined site of longing and escape, respite and refuge.
The sound works commissioned for That Other Hunger are composed by Michelle Helene Mackenzie.
Vanessa Brown works primarily in sculpture and installation. The root of her work draws from various sources including landscapes, craft, feminized labour, gestures of comfort, ideas of escape, and liminal spaces such as holes and dreams. She has exhibited in Canada, Germany, Luxembourg, the USA, and Mexico, notably with solo and two-person exhibitions at Patel Brown, Toronto; The Esker Foundation, Calgary; Arsenal, Toronto; Projet Pangée, Montreal; The Western Front, Vancouver; The Armory Show, New York. She is represented by Patel Brown.
www.vanessa-brown.com
