Opening on Thursday, June 26, 2014, Chazou contemporary Art Gallery'ssummer exhibition, Infused Encounter(s), presents the work of three artists, Aganetha Dyck, Jayne Holsinger, and Tricia Sellmer. Bringing together two of Dyck's felted sculptural figures, small-scale gouache paintings from Holsinger's recent series called "Contemporary Bestiary," and several of Sellmer's oil paintings from an on-going series called "In a Garden," Infused Encounter(s) celebrates spirited meetings between wool and hot water, urban and rural and insects and flowers.
Recipient of Canada Council's Governor-General's Medal in visual and Media Arts (2007), Aganetha Dyck is known for her profound commitment to environmental concerns, expressed in her lengthy artistic collaboration with honey bees in sculptural works such as The Masked Ball (2008). After a severe allergic reaction to a bee sting in August of 2009, Dyck began to explore the possibilities of fantastical creatures based on a process during which she shrunk woolen clothing into free-standing, felted sculptures - a process of shrinking she developed in the 1970's. Based in Winniped, Dyck has completed nine sculptures of shrunken crochet that she collectively calls "Shrinks."
Based in New York, Jayne Holsinger has exhibited at several galleries and museums including the Bronx Museum of the Arts (new York), Pensacola Museum of Art (Florida), and the Topkapi Palace (Istanbul). Using photographic references as her starting point, she paints primarily in oils and gouache media, and her work carries a stark documentary quality while simultaneously engaging emotionally with its subjects. In 2007 she received an MFA degree from the Transart Institute, Berlin, Germany. an adjunct professor at Monclair State University and Rutgers-Newark, Holsinger continues to work on a series of gouache paintings called "Contemporary Bestiary."
A multi-media artist, Tricia Sellmer completed, in 2009, an MFA degree at the Transart Institute, During her 3 years of graduate work in Transart's new media program, both Aganetha Dyck and Jayne Holsinger served as mentors to Sellmer. Painting primarily in oils, Sellmer explores the veiled subtleties of the garden, the shifting patterns of landscape, and the secret intelligence of the creatures, particularly bees, which inhabit it. She has exhibited at the Kamloops Art Gallery (Kamloops), Penticton Art Gallery (Penticton), and International Women Artist's Salon (New York) amongst other spaces.
Catalogue available with essay by Dr. Connie Brim