A new exhibit at the Gibsons Public Art Gallery is taking the gallery in a new direction, as Roberts Creek artist Mieke Jay weaves nature with technology through an immersive, three-dimensional installation.
Jay’s show The Fabric of Our Lives opened on Jan. 13, transforming the gallery’s alabaster walls into an undulating blaze of colours, shapes and shadows. Five projectors beam organic settings — beaches, woods, water — overlaid by a latticework of computer-generated patterns.
“Until now, most of our shows have been paintings hanging on walls,” said gallery manager Christina Symons.
If most art shows require patrons to amble solemnly through painting-lined corridors, Jay’s show is a dazzling counterpoint to tradition.
Symons has seen visitors standing stock-still for minutes while Jay’s illuminations dance around them. One woman, lulled by the accompanying soundscape created by Baeden Shendebray, extended her arms and began to dance. Her swaying shadow fell onto one of three trapezoidal columns in the room, adding a human-shaped void to the kaleidoscopic tapestry.
“I have a lot of motion [in the work] and I really wanted it to feel uplifting,” Jay said, reflecting on pandemic conditions, which have required all gallery visitors to be vaccinated and masked. “It’s been a tough time for people. I just really wanted them to be able to have an experience that’s outside of our norm. My hope is that it gives people a little push of creativity that they can immerse themselves in and just hopefully feel a little bit more upbeat.”
Jay has been creating original projections since completing formal art studies at Emily Carr University in 2002. She began devising graphics for live performances and found a way to translate audience spontaneity into her work. “I’m live-mixing the media in response to what’s happening onstage,” she said. “The musicians are following the crowd and I’m following the musicians.”
A recent tenure as artist-in-residence at Sechelt’s Sunshine Coast Arts Centre took place amid strict COVID-19 restrictions, requiring her to conceive new material in isolation.
“At first I was actually working with fabric itself,” she said, “but fabric from my own history, which is of European descent. When I got the show at the GPAG, I wanted it to be more open and less about me. So I went to imagery that’s more about the metaphorical fabric of our lives here on the Coast, which for a lot of us really revolves around nature. It revolves around everyday things.”
Everyday sounds fill the aural palette of multi-instrumentalist Baeden Shendebray, also of Roberts Creek, composer of the 25-minute soundtrack for The Fabric of Our Lives. “All the background sounds are from the Coast,” said Shendebray, who performs under the name Goats and Lasers. “It’s all birds, squirrels, waves, wind and rain — tiny little textures. I like to add organic elements over electronic music to make it just a little less sterile.”
Jay will broadcast a program of live music and dance from the exhibit on Jan. 29 at 6 p.m., which can be viewed online at https://fb.me/e/1A37k1v1v. The Fabric of Our Lives remains on display until Feb. 6.
