Kelly Lycan. Autobiography for No One. Installation view, SFU Gallery, 2014. Photo: Blaine Campbell.
Kelly Lycan: Autobiography for No One
May 10 – August 1, 2014
SFU Gallery
Kelly Lycan’s installation and photo-based practice examines how value, particularly for objects, is contingent upon conditions of display. In assembling, repurposing and reinterpreting high and low objects, her work reveals how we order the material realm and use those strategies to relate to the world and each other. Referencing museum and art gallery exhibition standards, retail and personal display vernaculars, art history, design and commercial photography, Lycan’s work investigates worth and meaning in market and visual culture.
Autobiography for No One is a new monochromatic installation that presents a proliferation of all-white materials as a still life within the platform of the gallery. Operating akin to a studio space, the gallery contains an in-development installation to reveal the process of the still life before it is captured or fixed. Found furniture, clay forms, plaster casts of mass produced vases, stacked multiples, piles of discarded drywall, hanging transparent sheets, fitness equipment, inverted wastebaskets and pooled paint create an unfolding – and potentially boundary-less – space for the viewer.
The installation is arranged so as to reference the camera lens’ frame, while the homogeneous colour scheme raises questions of visibility. The white monochrome can be seen to indicate an absence, which is reinforced by “no one” within the work’s title (is “no one” the artist? the viewer?). The installation presents a challenging blankness onto which viewers may project their own narratives, emphasizing the false neutrality of the white cube of the gallery and alluding to the encouraged projection in product advertising. The values at play in global capital and the production and exchange of circulating goods are brought into dialogue with the critical values and material/conceptual strategies of contemporary art. The artist understands her material process as operating between sculpture and photography; the objects presented in Autobiography for No One shift between props and sculptures predicated on a projected assumption of the photographic capture.
Kelly Lycan lives and works in Vancouver. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. Her work has been exhibited in exhibitions in Canada, the US and Europe including solo presentations at Or Gallery in Vancouver and Gallery TPW in Toronto. She is a member of Instant Coffee, a service oriented artist collective.
Curated by Melanie O’Brian.
Events
Opening Reception
May 10, 11:00am – 1:00pm
Mimosas and limited edition grab bags
Artist Talk
Wednesday, June 25, 2014, 7pm
1202 East Pender Street, Vancouver
