Amy Chang — Regenerate
Panoply – Invited Guest Artists
Rosemary Burden — Sticks and Stones
Sticks and Stones is an interactive installation … gently push the suspended stones in their netted covers and watch them swing!
(bamboo, found bird nests, stones, thread)
Amy Chang — Regenerate
Spring is the season for plants and creatures to come back to life. I use clay slip to cast the bugs and randomly scatter them among the bushes. These flying insects are showing the sign that the world of nature is regenerating.
(clay, metal sticks)
amychangceramics.com FB AmyChangCeramicsField
Ying-Yueh Chuang — Summer Delight
It is always a true delight to spot the first flowers popping out of the ground to say hello, hello, I am here! after the long, cold Winter. They look like they could not wait to greet the Spring and sprout out with energy and excitement. They are a testament to the miracle and the magic of life. Coming from Taiwan originally, the hot Summer was always my favorite season. However, Summer in Vancouver most of time is not hot or long enough for me. This work conveys the surprises of Spring that I love. I want viewers to experience, in the middle of the summer, the delight I feel witnessing the energy and excitement of Spring.
(porcelain, branches)
yingyuehchuang.com
Polly Gibbons — Monstrosus
Euonymus alatus ‘Monstrosus’ is a deciduous shrub that is native to parts of China, Japan, and Korea. Its nickname is “burning bush” due to its bright red foliage in the fall. It is listed as an invasive species in the eastern United States and has been described as “problematic.” The seeds are edible to birds and wildlife which can contribute to it spreading like wildfire.
The cultivar designation ‘Monstrosus’ most likely refers to its size but I believe it could be applied to its tendency to spread equally well. ‘Monstrosus’ is the Latin precursor for the word ‘monstrous’ but the meaning I am inspired by in this installation is an obsolete definition.
(installation)
IG @pollygibbons
Pierre Leichner — Remembering Our Roots
Every Christmas in Provence, France, my family would plant wheat on cotton in a dish. When the grass was pulled out of the dish, I noticed that the roots had taken the shape of the dish. By growing wheatgrass in molds of faces the roots metamorphose into representations of human forms. During the exhibition they will dry and weather reminding us of our ephemerality. In this way nature imitates us in celebrating our community at this time of great ecological concern. Working directly with nature has made me realize that we have created a false separation between nature and ourselves; after all, roots occur in our bodies, families, and communities and spiritually with our planet and the cosmos.
(wheat grass)
leichner.ca FB pierre.leichner.3 IG @leichnerart
Helma Sawatzky — Germination
Nature teaches us that life naturally cycles through stages of productivity, dormancy, regeneration, and germination. Culture tends to demand otherwise—imposing its expectations of continuous productivity. In some ways, the global pandemic became like a cultural circuit breaker that allowed us to catch our breath, ‘come to our senses’ and foster a deeper awareness of what it is to be human. I tumbled into the pandemic shutdown with my PhD dissertation defense on March 26, 2020. I felt depleted. Empty. The invitation to participate in this show has been an impetus for creative germination and experimentation. Temporarily shelving my photography practice, I simply took some floral wire and started weaving, unsure of the creative outcome.
(floral wire)
helmasawatzky.com helma@helmasawatzky.com Twitter@helmasawatzky
Tracie Stewart / Teresa Klein— Braiding Ways of Knowing
Artist /Arborist Tracie Stewart and Author /Horticulturalist /Ceremonialist, Teresa Klein investigate Arboreal Relationship~ Thuja plicata derivative plicate-braided.
Indigenous peoples recognize kinship and reciprocity with Arborvitae~‘Tree of life’. World wide, people have used Western Red Cedar in a variety of applications. Contemporary Covid Culture features these oxygen providers in N95 mask production. Suzanne Simard relates Mother tree, living communities, root and mycelia: vast interconnected support systems.
The artists ask “What is your affiliation with Cedar?”
Invitation – as active participants in life, stand at the bend in the road. Take a deep breath of forest. Look with soft eyes to the four directions. Smile, say hello. What do you See? Smell? Hear? Feel? Remember?
(medical masks, soil, plastic mirrors, cedar seedlings and roots, sticks, monofilament)
Tracie Stewart traciestewart.weebly.com IG @tracie_stewart_artist
Teresa Klein IG @gardens_devine
Giving Homage: Red Western Cedar. A populace vanishing from its small range homelands in the PNW, on the brink of extinction through years of unchecked logging of Old Growth Forests, is now thought to be exacerbated by the trauma of Climate Change.
Debbie Westergaard Tuepah — When Endings Are Not
For all things living, the extension of life or wellbeing is often only achievable with a panoply of support. Recognizing the precariousness of our contemporary state of being, from environmental to human, this work of delicately balanced wood and objects from a loved one, is suspended in synchronicity to its neighbouring, dramatically supported, Canadian/Japanese Walnut Hybrid heritage tree.
(wood, found objects)
debbietuepah.com IG @debbie_tuepah
Kira Wu / Christine Moulson — Mycelia Breathe
The concept behind “Mycelia Breathe” is a doorway onto the forest floor between garden beds 9w &10, the location on a sloped hill with moss-covered stone stairway, atop of stairs, a bonsai-like tree and an opening to the exposed bark underneath. A hand-woven bark replica of a “lung” sculpture is floating amongst branches. The doorway structure at bottom, is white to imitate the fungi covered with small round cut pieces from found branches, round circular or polka-dot patterns. The “doorway” will be unattached at the top, leaving trails of white, floating dots that look to be disappearing into the sky, like mold spores lifting off. Along the stone steps that meander up the pathway to the tree, three phrases of the word “BREATHE” onto the steps in three distinct steps.
(mixed media, found branches, cut wood, paint, bark-weaved basket)
Kira Wu kirawu.com IG @wu_kira kiralaifoon.wu@gmail.com
Christine Moulson IG @christinemoulson
Kira Wu / Christine Moulson — Mycelia Breathe
Z·inc gratefully acknowledges the support of the City of Surrey’s Cultural Grants Program and the Darts Hill Garden Conservancy Trust Society.