‘Everything Leaks.’

Well, that seems like a fitting name for an art exhibit in 2020. Or, for 2020 as a whole.

Everything Leaks is the name of one of three new exhibits showing at North Vancouver’s Polygon Gallery from December 10th to February 7th, 2021. This is an experimental collaboration between Vancouver artists Marisa Kriangwiwat Holmes and Maya Beaudry. These Emily Carr graduates created Everything Leaks specially for The Polygon’s award-winning architectural space.

In Everything Leaks, we read: ‘the artists embed images within images, using collage, stickers, watercolour, and other mediums to respond to our era of visual information overload. Reacting to an increasingly digital and dematerialised culture, their works unfold across tactile surfaces, such as fabrics, sculpture, and printed photographs. These physical environments construct an imagined architecture of the mind, speculating on the ways in which photographic images entrench themselves and live within our psyche.’

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Marisa Kriangwiwat Holmes. Everything Leaks. Y Guides, 2020. chromogenic print

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Marisa Kriangwiwat Holmes. Car Sports, 2020, chromogenic print

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The second new show on this winter at The Polygon is Miradas Alternas. Through Her Lens which showcases printed material, photos, and video from Juliana Alvarado, Alejandra Aragón, Koral Carballo, Mariceu Erthal and Sonia Madrigal, all artists from Mexico. ‘Rejecting the forensic gaze common to news photography and mass media,’ the gallery explains, these artists ‘draw on language, use poetic devices and employ performative strategies to produce photographic images differently. Focusing on the affects of loss, grief, rage, and fear, their work evokes the absence of missing and murdered women and tell stories that claim spaces for presence, visibility and justice.’

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Mericeu Erthal, from Letters to Gemma series, 2017 – 2020, inkjet print

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Juliana Alvarado, Flaka, From the series Name Them, 2017, Inkjet print

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The final show in this trio is A pot lid for the sky, which unites the work of Canadian artist Christopher Lacroix and renowned American conceptual artist John Baldessari, who passed away in January of 2020. ‘Both artists embrace self-parody, irony, and absurdist humour to question what role art might play in a complicated, changing world.’

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A pot lid for the sky. Christopher Lacroix, Yes, Sir. (detail), 2018-2019, 1,702 pencils

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John Baldessari, Man With Snake 1990, courtesy of private collection

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With an eye on all three shows, Justin Ramsey – The Polygon’s Assistant Curator, and curator of A pot lid for the sky and Everything Leaks – says: ‘It feels appropriate to end this challenging year with a celebration of visionary young artists who critique that which we accept as familiar, and imagine new ways forward. Throughout these exhibitions, there is a recurring theme of reaction, exchange, and collaboration that resonates in these times of transition.’

.Winter Exhibits @ The Polygon Gallery

www.creatorsvancouver.com

Header: Christopher Lacroix. A Pot Lid For The Sky. We do not know when we started, we do not know when we will end, 2019, inkjet print