written by Julie Oakes.

There are three difficulties, according to Sigmund Freud's "Civilization and Its Discontents," that stand between man and a life of perfect being – the body, the natural world, and one's fellow man. Each aspect can prevent human ascendancy - the body's pain and eventual disintegration, nature with discontentment from the elements, climate and wild beasts, and societal contumely manifested from various causes, from love denied to property rights to war. But these aspects are also sources of man's pleasure, graces, and fates. The process that had led to advances against these three could be termed 'civilization'. Conversely, civilization can put man back to find himself pitted against the three graces but with the three furies winning. Climate change. This potential message is served without malice, contempt, or didacticism in Byron Johnston's exhibition Anthropocene, a cautionary tale spiced with Johnston wit. It bodes not gloom and doom but hope at mankind's - and nature's - resilience.

A vineyard is an example of man shaping the wild to his own ends as centuries of cultivation turned the grape plant (found naturally and discovered as edible) into the robust varieties of wine, jam, and juice enjoyed today.  Not resting with picking and popping the small fruits into the mouth in place, man figured a way of pressing the berries and making juice, which, in containment and with care, became alcoholic. The ancient Greeks found this accomplishment worthy of a godly crown. Hence, Dionysus (Bacchus) entered the pantheon of gods and goddesses, influencing man and being the cause for festivals, celebrations, nuptial toasts, and a good many mornings in recovering hangovers. The significance of wine endured after Dionysus fell from cultural popularity; table wines flourished, and the Christian tradition saw it as such a staple that wine became a sacrament in their Holy Communion.

This 'wine timeline' took place during the Anthropocene, our current geological age during which man has profoundly impacted the environment, causing climate change. Johnston has taken the slogan, "3 R's - reduce, reuse, recycle” - where each person can counter the trend - and put it into artistic play. The Okanagan is renowned for its vineyards alongside orchards of tree fruits. The vines that Johnston used to create his pieces for the Lake Country Art Gallery exhibition are from the fallout of climate change and this domination of civilization.  An unusual bitter cold snap this winter of 2024 brought down many Okanagan vines. Sadly, man's carefully trained plants died - a fateful morning after. When offered the bulky load of dead vines, Johnston saw it as an invitation to recycle a sculptor's material within the tangled shapes. Then, coming from his practice of creating from a variety of found and invented materials and referencing and then recycling older works, a new and artistic Anthropocene came into being, one that didn't chide as much as wryly acknowledge the downsides of civilization - always more memorable than a scolding.

The exhibition Anthropocene embodies important and timely concerns as Johnston treats his subject matter thoughtfully, providing clues for the viewer to navigate through the installation. He intended orange to symbolize 'alert' as commonly seen in roadwork signage and Hi-Viz vests while yellow is 'safety'. Throughout the exhibition, there are seven eye-scopes or peepholes, small open circles on long stems (six are orange, one a neutral aluminum) through which a perspective can be seen. A proposed pathway through Anthropocene begins outside the gallery where a pile of dead wood (grapevines) surrounds a ballot box, and a wrinkled mirroring surface framed in the same wood detritus reflects the person standing before it. Positioning the viewer in front of the orange peephole placed directly in front of the gallery window reveals the interior with a huge yellow chair, with it’s back to the room, and with it’s front as if looking out the window.

Entering, we are confronted with a shape common to playgrounds which refers to Johnston's concern for ongoing generations, the grandchildren. The teeter-totter that must be passed in order to enter the inner galleries has a great bulk of twisted roots and stems contained neatly in a man-made bundle, but were a man (much less a child) to try, and sit upon the aesthetically considered orange seat, his hands clasping the golden globe to steady himself, he would not be able to budge that bundle. The effect of climate change has proven to be heavy.  

Johnston grants opportunities to switch attention away from the artist towards the viewer. The work encourages inspection. Sculptures that use glass cylinders show nature's designs and purposes. The unparalleled perfection of a column of white eggs in the middle of which is a brown egg while crowning the column lays a wild bird's egg, ups quotidian to extraordinary. In another glass tube, purple grapes slump downwards, mulching as the full stack that appeared on opening night impulsively asserts its 'grape nature' and a small puddle of drips appears on the base. Knowing these food products, we are prompted to consider their life cycles as we worry about rot and fruit flies or wonder at the potential, as in the case of the rye seeds trailing through a mini tube into a pyramid, to sprout. Rye, a fast-growing crop, is planted first to prepare the ground for other grains being seeded. Johnston respects nature's ongoing processes and offers a small bow to man's ingenuity. 

The viewer becomes the focus when visiting Byron Johnston's Anthropocene although they do appear somewhat convoluted. Strategically placed stainless steel mirrors on snaking copper arms are set to reflect visitors, not frighteningly or even clearly, but funny, like at a carnival's House of Mirrors. And proportionately, Johnston has portrayed mankind in Lilliputian terms with a chair for a giant (yellow - a safe seat?) or with a tiny aluminum chair mounted near the ceiling where a hole has been cut for a head to poke through to see what is above. There is a piece based on the principle of a periscope for the delight of feeling mystified. Enigmatic assertions like the conveyor belt, now rusted but once used to sort apples, sport a couple of fresh apples that would be stopped in their progress by a dilapidated baby carriage filled with wood shavings - the question as to what this generation is bequeathing to the next is again introduced.

And since Byron Johnston is kind in his delivery, Anthropocene is a wake-up call with a melodic chime. The inventiveness exhibited is testimony to man's potential to find solutions, for art to imagine the limitless forms that our existence and influence can take. Johnston's message isn't necessarily dismal. He has shown that beauty and reason can be summoned when problems are carefully phrased.  

NOTES:
Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) by Sigmund Freud explores the tension between individual desires and societal norms.

There are around 185 licensed grape wineries and 3,575 hectares (8,830 acres) of vineyards. The long, narrow Okanagan Valley runs for around 210 kilometers (130 miles) from the northern town of Salmon Arm to the border of the United States in the south.

With El Niño in place for the winter of 2023-2024, many growers were hoping for the forecast above-normal temperatures that normally occur with that event. Unfortunately, on January 13th of this year, Kelowna recorded temperatures of –30 degrees Celsius (–22 Fahrenheit).

*Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents, vineyards in the Okanagan and 2023-24 winter temperatures in the Okanagan, Google Search, Google,16 October 2024

Guest Writer: 
Julie Oakes: With a career spanning some 40 years, Julie Oakes is well known as a provocative, culturally critical, multi-dimensional artist who expresses herself through sculpture, painting, drawing, writing, video, and performance. Whether working with feminist, humanist, or spiritual themes, her work flirts with autobiographical elements. Oakes has shown her work extensively in both major Canadian and American collections.

First you notice the objectified “attractive female sleeping” character – flat, like out of a comic book. Then you read the captions: The hardest part / Is waking up alone. And the first thing you think of is the stereotypical, cinematic loneliness of a woman waking up alone. The sun, like a halo, behind her is already up. But is she awake and just keeping her eyes shut – or is she only about to wake up? Not unlike the Mona Lisa who only just begins to smile, this character is in between, in a half dream, which we are beginning to inhabit.
 
We know what loneliness is like. Loneliness is built into our commodified, mass-marketed bodies. The female character recurs in this artist’s work. Like an Andy Warhol Madonna. It could be someone’s avatar on social media. It could be any one of us. If there was a QR code to scan here, we would be raising our phones prayerfully to inhabit this icon’s digital dimension.
 
In the exquisite lettering around her – EXQS – we discern the hint of a hammer and sickle in the Q. The five-corner stars we noticed before now begin to acquire meaning. The circled anarchist A in one corner is balanced by the heart in the opposite. Arrows suggest movement – the movement of the mind, language, towards alternatives. If we can find a way not to be alone together, perhaps our social system would be different.
 
Waking up to a system of exploitation can be lonely business. To be alone is also a prerequisite for awareness, knowledge. To be aware and alone yet not lonely – perhaps that is the hardest of all. And here in this Lake Country skate park, several artists have come together for the first time to create something new out of highly individualized styles. In a dialogue of style and meaning new possibilities emerge.

Two UBCO MFA thesis Exhibitions May-June 2023

ZOORKHANEH_Nasim Pirhadi 

I Died as a Mineral_Heraa Khan

It has been approximately a year since I first met Nasim Pirhadi and Heraa Kahn, two talented artists immersed in
the early stages of their MFA Program. Over time,  I witnessed their artistic processes unfold, filled with inquiries,
contemplations, and extensive research, gradually shaping their works into remarkable presentations.

For this year's UBCO MFA Exhibition, the Lake Country Art Gallery has been divided into two distinct exhibition spaces. The first space showcases Heraa Kahn's collection of miniature paintings, delicately arranged on the gallery walls, gently illuminated to highlight each individual piece. Through these paintings, Kahn invites viewers into a contemplative journey exploring themes of the natural world, human interactions, and the ensuing climate crisis. The exhibition, titled 'I Died as a Mineral,' draws inspiration from Rumi's poem of the same name, perhaps symbolizing the cycle of life and incorporating materials that mirror this connection. Kahn's intricate paintings serve as cautionary tales, offering viewers profound insights, meanings, and interpretations of Rumi's poem.

While standing amidst Kahn's exhibition, one's attention is drawn to a small archway that leads to another space at the rear of the gallery. Passing through, visitors enter Nasim Pirhadi's installation titled 'Zoorkhaneh,' which translates to 'House of Strength'—a traditional gymnasium for men. Pirhadi has ingeniously transformed the room into an immersive installation, combining video, photography, sounds, scents, and exercise-related objects. The air is filled with the sweet fragrance of sugar and rose water. Traditionally reserved for men, the wooden equipment within the space is now open to all, as Pirhadi invites diverse participation in this exhibition. Notably, Pirhadi has recreated the apparatuses using sugar, imbuing the piece with a sense of heightened weight and transparency—an innovative reinterpretation of traditional beliefs and values concerning women's rights, human rights, and societal roles.
 
For five days, I observed Heraa Kahn and Nasim Pirhadi meticulously navigate the gallery space, constructing walls, selecting paint colours, contemplating support structures, lighting arrangements, soundscapes, and strategic placement of their works. Every decision was made with utmost care, thoughtfulness, and thorough consideration, leaving no aspect to chance. Their unwavering commitment and hard work was admirable.

In these tumultuous times we find ourselves in, these exhibitions hold tremendous significance, encouraging us to stay informed about global affairs. The gallery has produced two exhibition catalogues, one for each artist, to showcase their thesis works. The presence of Heraa Kahn and Nasim Pirhadi's art within the Lake Country Art Gallery is a true privilege for us—the gallery, the Lake Country community, and all those who have the opportunity to engage with their remarkable work.
​
Wanda Lock
Curator

State(s) of Being  

The fact that women are still underrepresented in the art world of today is  such a disappointment. I wish I could say it is also a surprise. Much like the  civil rights movement of the 60s, after the height of the women’s movement  and the institutional respect and acceptance of feminist art during the  1970s, as a culture we had the hand-wiping attitude of a problem that had  been solved. But not so. As with the BLM movement, the COVID pandemic  revealed that not much had really changed within the gendered  expectations and experiences of our society. Although the workforce  included a greater number of women than in decades past, with most  working full-time, women were still, for the most part, responsible for  household and childcare duties. 

The pandemic removed the illusion of independent, self-sufficient, career driven womanhood by revealing the weight of all the myriad home-life  related chores that had been outsourced to other less-privileged women.  The same old sexist framework was still there all along, hidden beneath a  comfy padding of dollar bills. Outwardly, for a couple of decades, it truly  looked as though things had changed. A career and child both! A family and  a fulfilling job! We can have it all. Look how far we have come. The  unfortunate truth was that the mirage of freedom and equality was only  available because of paid additional support from other women. 

It is this hidden skeleton of disparity that the art world too, is built upon. The  social and political framework of capitalism favours a certain type of worker.  A hustler, a grinder, someone who is willing to go big or go home. The  system is built for making money, and the faster the better. Scale up. In  fact, things truly have been scaling up, even material things like houses,  cars, grocery stores, family vacations, post-secondary education. This is  where unregulated capitalism brings us, and it is unsustainable. 

What does this have to do with the art world? Well, like any other industry,  art is attached to a market, and as we know, the free market  prioritizes economic growth above all else. An artist who is also a mother is  in most cases working the ‘second shift’. That is, as detailed above, they  are most likely to be the ones in charge of the domestic sphere, including  the children. This reality does not jive well with a bombastic studio practice  built around a bohemian, foot-loose lifestyle, which is the antiquated myth  that still persists around the creation of artwork.

​Who are the ones who can more readily embody this ideal? Young men, or older men who have  remained in this role throughout their careers. There are exceptions to this  of course, but I am generalizing to make a point. It is a matter of time and focus, and any artist who is also a mother is in  short supply of these two essential ingredients. Who are the artists making  it to all the evening gallery openings and artist talks? The meeting and  greeting? Who are the artists with studio spaces separate from their homes  and stuffed full of work? Who are the artists with mentors? Someone who  looks like them? Where is the shop talk taking place? The evolving artistic  dialogue is not happening at the family dinner table or in bed before  storytime. Or with the other parents at school drop-off and pick-up. How  can you be in two places at once? It is hard to contort oneself to fit a mold  that is not designed for you. It takes extraordinary measures and a will of  steel to climb a man-made mountain. Mercifully, one of the defining  characteristics of an artist is someone who finds a way to be truly  themselves, bending the world to their inner compass, letting the world in  on how they see things, how things feel in their skin. This caveat to the  chimerical role in society of the capital ‘A’ artist may be the saving grace of  the profession.  

Thank goodness (goddess?) for the progressive thinking of those mothers  and artists who are able to find a way to create and be visible in the art  scene by bending the social strictures, shattering outdated myths, finding  loopholes and forging new paths. It takes exceptional strength of  determination and motivation to keep in the game and succeed. The  women chosen for the exhibition The State(s) of Being at the Lake Country  Art Gallery - Janine Hall, Joice M. Hall, Lindsay Lorraine, Mary Smith  McCulloch, and Rhonda Neufeld - have proven themselves to be artists  and mothers who are supernaturally spirited. They have decided to want  something for themselves and they are not afraid to take it. Culture and  society benefit from these women. We need their voices and their vision.  They are wanted and needed, not only by their children and family but by  their art community at large, and the world beyond. 

Bree Apperley is a Canadian mother, artist, designer and writer based in Syilx territory (Okanagan, B.C.). She holds degrees in both Fine Art and Design Art, from the Alberta College of Art + Design and Concordia University respectively. For more information about the author visit https://breeapperley.com/ and on instagram @fwuitbowl.

the principles of object obsession and our undoing

Hyperobject in A Quake in Beingis "things that are massively distributed in time and space relative to humans." The relativity of 'our' existence—the 'human' existence—rests upon our innate compulsion to build tools to respond to our ever-changing environments. This is the human condition1. Timothy Morton continues to describe this object-making response through the term hyperobject as "long-lasting product['s] of direct human manufactur[ing]. […] a sum of all the whirring machinery of capitalism." So how do we curate our spaces with equipment, gear, goods, and junk? Are these relics of innovation everlasting or short-lived? Do these mass-produced materials contribute to the earth’s ecology positively? Can there be ways we can reassess our relationship with these materials’adaptability?

Principles of Enclosure looks to address these questions under the theme “functional obsolescence.” Artists Gambletron, Johnny Forever and zevtiefenback specifically engage with various objects,“usefulness” or “desirability” based on their outdated design feature that is difficult to alter.In this way, you get an overall sense that the artists are critiquing capitalist consumption by incorporating their relationships to production and distribution to its impossibility of being equitably sustainable. By engaging with object-making in the industrial realm, they reveal those objects' precarity.

Objects such as:

 plastic columns: a contention to the contemporary depiction from classic historical architecture. Alabaster in       material and embellished by a Corinthian top are redefined by a mass-produced plastic form that becomes             figurative once a latex sheet is draped on top.

        antennas are dismembered from their radio bodies while their bellies are dissected and reconnected to other           parts to form a new way of relevance.

               noise: the voices of these objects speak through static utterances. A sort of nostalgic way of listening                          where one used to scan radio waves for other signs of life.

                     discarded wood is repurposed in a self-reflexive way to stimulate our relationship with trees and                                   extractive pursuits with Land.

                           Photographic documents of property ownership become memories of bygone eras where security                                  was somewhat obtainable yet unsustainable.

To come across these objects, equipment, gear, goods, and junk within a gallery space forces the viewer to reintroduce themselves. The artwork’s technology or representation can be nostalgic for some or maybe totally unfamiliar. A pendulum swing between relativity to irrelevance. It is arguable to say that Principles of Enclosure is time-based and ephemeral. It is also arguablethat these works assert life on their own—beyond a human focus perspective that usually projects object relevance based on sharing space. However, these objects, equipment, gear, goods, and junk continue to exist when we are gone. When ‘we’ are gone forever, these works will remain here. Some can erode. Some will not.

Michaela Bridgemohan Guest Writer

1 This is in reference to the human history of constructing objects and tools to our social spaces. However, I want to acknowledge that other animals such as crows, ravens, and other birds also make tools as to strategize hunting and foraging. .