Archive for July, 2008

Kelly Richardson: Rapture and Critique (Canadian Art Magazine)

Kelly Richardson: Rapture and Critique

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BIRCH LIBRALATO, TORONTO JUL 24 TO SEP 6 2008

Canada-trained, UK-based artist Kelly Richardson has become well known for her thoughtful artworks that toy wittily with the cinematic. The effectiveness of these is demonstrated partly in the increasing reach of Richardson’s work, with recent shows in venues ranging from Washington’s Hirshhorn Museum to Buffalo’s Hallwalls Arts Centre to London’s Nunnery project space.

Accordingly, Richardson’s current show presents two new video installations (one a projection) on her signature theme. Twilight Avenger conjures Harry Potter movies, pagan myths and urban legends alike with a glowing (perhaps radioactive? Or drug-induced?) stag traversing a forest. Wagon’s Roll (The Remake), a redo of a 2003 work, has a car remain suspended in action-flick-climax mid-air while the surrounding landscape continues to change in a deadpan, mundane fashion.

Both of these videos reinforce Richardson’s characteristic blend of audiovisual rapture and cinematic critique, a sense previously demonstrated in her reworkings of horror films like Frogs, In the Company of Wolves and Swamp Thing, and also seen more recently inExiles of the Shattered Star, which has fireballs rain down on an idyllic landscape. The results are always beautiful and apocalyptic, ridiculously silly and deadly serious—an appropriate mix for our jaded-yet-anxious age. (129 Tecumseth St, Toronto ON)

www.birchlibralato.com

 

2008
07/26
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Twilight Avenger at Birch Libralato (July 24-Sept 6)

Kelly Richardson

Kelly Richardson: Twilight Avenger
Birch Libralato
July 24, 2008 – September 6, 2008
Reception: July 24, 2008 5-8 PM

Birch Libralato is proud to present new work by Kelly Richardson. Two new video installations and a series of photographs elicit the language of cinema to create fantastical tableaux reflecting split realities: part real, part imagined.

In the video ‘Twilight Avenger’ a glowing stag quietly walks through a dark, enigmatic forest in a dreamlike state. ‘Wagon’s Roll (The Remake)’ features the moment in an action film where a car flies off of a cliff. The wheels spin, clouds pass, cicadas buzz and smoke billows from the car all the while portentously suspended in mid air. Both wily and contemplative Richardson’s new work offers rich visual metaphors for our complicated ‘modern reality’.

Kelly Richardson was born in Canada where she studied fine art at the Ontario College of Art and Design (AOCAD with honours) in Toronto and media studies at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (MFA studies) in Halifax. Her works have been exhibited internationally at various venues including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, USA, 2008), HALLWALLS (Buffalo, USA, 2008), Le Mois de la Photo a Montreal (Montreal, Canada, 2007), The Nunnery (London, UK, 2006), Gwangju Biennale (South Korea, 2004), Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, Canada, 2003) and Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, 2002). Her works were recently acquired by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Albright-Knox and the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Upcoming exhibitions include the Busan Biennale (Busan, South Korea, 2008) and Pace University Digitial Gallery (NYC, USA, 2008). She lives and works in the United Kingdom.

Twilight Avenger has been supported by ISIS Arts, UK.

2008
07/09
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