A trio of artists opened a group exhibition on May 17 at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre, giving form and colour to ideas that usually linger at the periphery of perception.
For Studies in Sentience, Vancouver-based artists Biliana Velkova and Sunshine Frère rejoined Gibsons multi-disciplinarian Erika Mashig in a reprise of earlier, alliterative collaborations. The group previously exhibited together in 2023 at Burnaby’s Deer Lake Gallery with a show titled Breakdown Buildup, and in 2021 at North Vancouver’s Cityscape Community Art Space (Conspicuous Collapse).
The new works by Velkova, Frère and Mashig exist in liminal spaces bounded by impression, analysis and conclusion.
“Taking apart and putting back together is something that Sunshine talks about,” explained the gallery’s assistant curator Keely Halward. (Frère was unable to attend the opening.) “Playing with colour and pattern and repetition shows up in their practices and the concepts behind their work.”
Velkova’s paintings of mythological creatures are rooted in pre-Christian tales from her Bulgarian homeland. The fantastic beasts are rendered in florid hues; the arresting eye in the oil-on-canvas work Lamia is simultaneously inquisitive and demure. The union of miscellaneous appendages is precisely the point: these storied creatures were traditionally used to explain enigmatic weather patterns and natural disasters.
“I think all people try to make sense of the world,” said Velkova, “and we try to have our beliefs to make those connections. I’ve been going back and learning about those creatures and how they shape their culture, even today.”
An array of mask images by Velkova depicts figures that bring good luck and bountiful harvests. In the spring, male villagers prepare the landscape by wearing masks and clanging bells.
“The more noise they make, the better [the harvest] will be,” she explained, “the more they will scare the negative creatures away. I really like that connection of the sound and the kind of presence that they have.”
Meanwhile, Mashig’s intricate prints on textiles require her to invert and transform her end vision by carving three-dimensional woodblocks. The result (as in her triptych of triptychs, Backyard Flowers) presents naturalistic geometric forms combined with tactile familiarity and infused with subtle colour harmonies.
“You have to really plan and think ahead,” Mashig said. “I love the process of deconstruction. As I’m carving away the things that are going to make the image, I think that’s really complementary to how we work in our lives and how we see the world.”
Frère’s bright-coloured abstracts present artful aggregates: over months, she gathered time-based statistics that range from the global (the temperature of the ocean) to the intimate (her daily steps). The assemblage of data, segregated into four distinct months, forms an explosion of significance whose impact is absorbed viscerally instead of through the coarse-grained filter of the intellect.
“This is only the beginning,” said Velkova. “Sunshine is looking to do more [works] of the whole year. She’s taking this visual diary and continuing to lay out a different type of data that she’s collecting every day.”
The richly interconnected works of Studies in Sentience remain on display at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre until June 15.
