A few years ago, an ad appeared in a small Vancouver art magazine, Issue.
The ad read, “Coming soon, another Trapp project.”
On the page opposite was a list of artists.
Emily Carr art history professor and Trapp curatorial project founder Patrik Andersson had taken out the ad as a way to support the magazine (which was put out by his former students.) Andersson had asked his friend, Vancouver artist Kim Kennedy Austin, to compile a sort of fantasy team of artists who’d lived and worked in the city. He then just ran the list it as is, ambiguously hinting that there could be a new show coming up.
Fast forward a few years and, this weekend, a show featuring those same artists opens at Terminal Creek Contemporary in Artisan Square.
“The Serpentine Path” is curated by Andersson and features a multimedia selection of works from 16 artists, including some pieces made for this show.
“It started out as a small and humble exhibition,” says Andersson. Usually artists are paid artist fees but Terminal Creek’s budget doesn’t compare with that of Vancouver Art Gallery and other spaces where these artists have exhibited.
“It’s a show that’s grown out of generosity,” he says.
There are between 35 and 40 pieces in “The Serpentine Path.” They range from a video recreation of the Crane synchronized swimming move (from Ingrid Baxter of N.E. Thing Co.), to a sculpture (from Jack Jeffrey), to a series of stencil-esque paintings inspired by archival images of company picnics in the Union Steam Ship era (from Andersson’s collaborator Kennedy Austin.)
Other highlights include work from the creator of The Birds (in Olympic Village, Vancouver) Myfanwy MacLeod, and Ron Terada’s burnt cedar neon Snug Cove sign, a sign made especially for this exhibition.
Andersson describes putting together this show like a dinner party where someone asks you to make a three-course meal, and you have to look through the cupboards and see what people have.
The works have been selected for their relevance to one of the show’s inspirations – Bowen Island itself.
But the connections are serpentine in nature. Some works appeal to the characteristics of locals (such as a drawing of a Sointula bumper sticker that reads, “Think twice about eating farmed salmon”); others are more literal island representations, such as an underwater volcano painting. (Underwater volcanos create islands.)
Andersson’s says he’s trying to accomplish two things with this show – bring people and art from the outside to Bowen, and to bring Bowen in contact with work from elsewhere.
This all fits in nicely with the mandate of Terminal Creek Contemporary, which is owned by local artist Scott Massey. “The Serpentine Path” is the art space’s inaugural show from an outside curator (Massey showed his own work in the space in May and there was a place-holder exhibit over the summer.)
The show runs August 25 to September 14, with the opening happening this Saturday between 1 and 3 p.m. Many of the featured artists will be at the opening, some flying in from as far away as Toronto.
