ESTEVAN - The Estevan Art Gallery and Museum has two new exhibits on display, running from April 14-May 26.
Gallery 1 offers an exhibition by Patrick Fernandez called Tadhana, and Gallery 2 invites guests to enjoy works by Jared Boechler and Nic Wilson combined into an exhibit named All Conditioned Things.
Fernandez is an emerging visual artist who lives and works in Regina. Born in the Philippines, he paints using symbolism and reimagined folklore imagery as a means of storytelling. His works are based on personal experiences that deal with displacement, coping, taking chances and using circumstances as turning points for growth.
According to his artist’s statement, Fernandez's works have been shown in exhibitions in the Philippines, South East Asia, North America and Europe. As an active community leader, Fernandez has both founded and led several art collectives in the Philippines. He organized various art festivals and community events in his province of Pangasinan.
In 2017, he moved to Regina and continues his commitment to community engagement. Currently, he is serving as a member of the board of directors of the Art Gallery of Regina.
Tadhana or fate according to Merriam-Webster dictionary is "an inevitable and often adverse outcome, condition, or end". Fernandez's exhibition is inspired by the Bahala Na culture that is prevalent in Filipino society. To many Filipinos, the general approach to life is acceptance. Bahala na (come what may), captures the strong belief among many Filipinos that whatever may happen is a part of God's will. Any individual or group's success is often attributed to fate or God rather than efforts. This indicates a fatalistic attitude throughout society whereby Filipinos are generally accepting of their and others' circumstances.
"As an immigrant, it is a very common concept that 'fate brought us here' and the most common outlook of Bahala Na/come what may attitude is prevalent to anyone. However, this attitude is not only a visible trait for immigrants alone, but this is also actually a day-to-day outlook of everyone just varying in expression and terms. The exhibition aims to find parallels within culture to create a better understanding of each and everyone's disposition in life," says the artist's statement.
"These bodies of work explore ideas of fate while relating it to the quest for hierarchy in modern society. We live in a time that is always hungry for accomplishment, results and evidence of success. I want to elaborate the significance of fate through commentaries using imagery of reimagined folklore of my culture in order to give new meaning on how fate will lead us to one's self-discovery and freedom," Fernandez said in the statement.
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All Conditioned Things, created by Boechler and Wilson, is curated by the Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery and circulated by the Organization of Saskatchewan Arts Councils (OSAC).
Boechler works and exhibits internationally, including in New York, Asia and Europe. He has recently been awarded working fellowships at Serlachius Museum in Finland, Art Biopop in Japan, and the Sheen Centre for Thought and Culture in New York. Boechler was recognized at the Governor General History Awards for his work, presided over by the governor general of Canada, as well as presenting as the youngest exhibiting artist at NordArt, Germany. He is based in Saskatoon.
Wilson is an artist and writer who was born in the Wolastoqiyik territory now known as Fredericton, N.B., in 1988. Wilson graduated with a bachelor of fine arts from Mount Allison University in 2012, and an masters of fine arts from the University of Regina in 2019 where they was a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council graduate fellow.
Wilson has shown work across Canada and internationally at Third Space Gallery, Art Mur, the Remai Modern, Modern Fuel, and Venice International Performance Art Week. Their work often engages time, queer lineage and the distance between art practice and literature. Writing has appeared in publications such as BlackFlash magazine, Headlights Anthology, Peripheral Review, Border Crossings and PUBLIC.
"The exhibition All Conditioned Things presents the work of Saskatchewan artists, Jared Boechler and Nic Wilson, whose subject matter is embedded with symbolism or signifiers to explore concepts of mortality and impermanence. Both artists present mundane objects within their compositions, objects of domesticity, consumption and memorialization, many that are linked historically to traditional vanitas or memento mori paintings – including candles, ceramic vessels and flowers – that represent the passage of time, aging, decay, the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death. Their compositions explore the values and narratives that these objects come to symbolize," said curator Jennifer McRorie.
The artists’ statement says that like traditional vanitas, Boechler's hyper-realist oil paintings of interior spaces and still life objects that reflect a sense of melancholy, isolation and elements of surrealism, depict the domestic objects people surround ourselves with to examine concepts of the tenuous and impermanent nature of mortal existence, while also emphasizing the beauty and sanctity of life.
Boechler suggests that this body of work explores the objects and materials that come to signify a life through reflecting on "our dependency and relationship to our immediate surroundings and the objects found within them." His paintings relay a sense of privacy, capturing a specific time and place that reflects a shared human experience that often goes unwitnessed.
Wilson takes this exploration further in their still-life photographs of isolated arrangements of objects of memoria on coloured backgrounds with a pop-art-like aesthetic, to reflect on the colonial histories and values of such objects.
Wilson states on this body of work, "Still life images often present mundane objects for the contemplation like flowers, food, candles and other everyday household products. Historically, many still-life paintings have carried dense symbolism about the ever-present shadow of death, decay and rot. My images take up this history but also examine the way that traditional still life subjects – like flowers – have many intertwining histories as colonial commodities, symbols of both love and mourning, rare objects of fragile beauty, and canvases for human manipulation and control."
The presentation of their works together offers two bodies of work that are aesthetically constraining and yet conceptually similar, each depicting moments of fragile beauty and nostalgia, while offering reflections of the socially and culturally conditioned values and meanings of everyday objects that come to represent human histories and life.
