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human / nature
Article for Vue Weekly Magazine

Human Nature is Universal by Agnieszka Matejko
Quartet of Alberta women artists import breakthrough exhibition to China

When I first heard that four Alberta women artists had just exhibited their installations in major museums in Shanghai and Hong Kong, I was mightily impressed. (Their exhibition, Human Nature, is now open to public viewing at Lando Gallery.) How on earth did Laura Vickerson, Amy Loewan, Lyndal Osborne and Liz Ingram get their massive, room-sized contemporary works into the heart of China? The logistics of transporting heavy Plexiglas and wood components—not to mention Vickerson’s thousands of delicate rose petals—seem onerous enough. But they had a centuries-old cultural barrier to overcome as well: China is just not known for hosting major contemporary art exhibitions. Their art schools are still deeply immersed in traditional painting, and until recently there was not even a major contemporary art gallery in the entire country. In fact, these four women were among the first artists to exhibit in the brand-new art gallery recently built in Shanghai. In other words, their show is not just a minor blip in the annals of Alberta art history; it’s an event of great international significance.

"How it all started is that I came to know a curator from Shanghai who expressed interest in bringing Canadian women artists to Shanghai," explains the Hong Kong-born Amy Loewan, whose knowledge of Cantonese and Mandarin became an indispensable asset in the venture. Loewan eagerly introduced her friend to other artists in town; after meeting them, the curator selected the four who eventually came to exhibit in the show.

But the process of getting their work to China was not nearly as smooth as this auspicious beginning would suggest. Communication with the Chinese curator broke down, and the gallery in China did not respond to Loewan’s inquiries. "The show almost got cancelled," Loewan says. However, the four artists were so committed to the project that they were not about to quit. The contacted the Canadian consulate in China and lucked out in finding an extremely supportive staff member. "She was a life-saver of the whole show!" Loewan exclaims. "She found us the best museum of contemporary art in China—a very beautiful museum. We [became] the first Canadian contemporary exhibition in that museum."

There were many other glitches (such as not being able to get the artwork through customs in China and waiting to set up the show in an empty gallery), but somehow every problem found a solution. As soon as the artists began to worry about who was going to help us set up the show, a fairy godmother showed up in the guise of several former graduate students from Alberta who just happened to be in Shanghai. "The whole thing is the people who helped us along the way, " Loewan says, adding that the grad students also made the sightseeing a lot more fun. "They helped us to experience the affluence of Shanghai," Loewan says, gleefully recalling the wonderful rooftop restaurants they were taken to. But the highlight of their visit was their visit to the Water City. "We were traveling in a little canoe boat," Loewan says. "For one dollar [the man rowing the boat] sang four beautiful songs."

Luck and generous people may have played a big part in getting this complex exhibition across the ocean, but in the end, it was the work of these artists that made the show possible. The installations of all four women have a rare delicacy that seems almost made for a show in the Orient. "The subtlety of Liz’s aesthetic has a real oriental quality," Loewan explains, "dark to light, transitions of hues and value." Vickerson’s rose petal "tapestries," meanwhile, have the intricacy and richness of emperor’s robes, while Osborne’s installation of natural objects arranged on tables seems inspired by the street vendors of China. "In the shops they pile up things—a pile of shrimps, day lilies," Loewan explains. "When the audience looked at it, they must have said, ‘Oh yes, we pile up things here too!"

And of course Loewan’s own work is directly inspired by her Chinese roots. "I use a lot of symbols from Chinese mythology," she says, describing the circles (sky) and squares (earth) that she meticulous paints onto intricately arranged strips of rice paper. On the floor beneath her work lies a long pile of white rice that looks like a prairie snowdrift. "Art to me is like food for the soul," Loewan concludes. "Rice is food for the soul. All of us address that."


Human Nature
By Liz Ingram, Amy Loewan, Lyndal Osborne, Laura Vickerson • Lando Gallery


Additional Reviews

human/nature excerpt by Amy Gogarty from the catalogue human/nature, 2004

human/nature essay by Amy Gogarty from the catalogue human/nature, 2004

Edmonton Airports Commission, 2004, by Agnieszka Matejko