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October 18 – November 24, 2012. MAIN GALLERY: AIR, Sydney Lancaster, NEST

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Lancaster, 25 Small Nests, Charcoal on Vellum, 4” x 4”, 2012.

October 18 – November 24, 2012

Opening Reception: Thursday, October 18 from 7 -10pm

Artist Talks: DOYLE & KEITH TALK: 6:15pm, LANCASTER TALK: 7:15pm

Main Gallery   |   AIR, Sydney Lancaster   |   Nests

Harcourt House has an Artist in Residence program that is committed to providing one artist with a yearlong, studio environment that is dedicated to research, develop and to exhibit new work. This one-year residency includes a studio space, access to our art education courses and facilities, and teaching opportunities. This exhibition in October will showcase the work that she has made within the residency. We encourage the public to see this show in person, it will be an experience.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Sydney Lancaster is an Edmonton-based mixed media visual artist, writer and musician. Her work examines how humans negotiate the intersections between private and public stories through objects, images, words, and actions.  She is fascinated by the ways in which we ‘map’ our sense of place, security, and belonging – or lack of it – through objects and markers of place.

“Mankind’s nest, like his world, is never ?nished. And imagination helps us to continue it.”

                              Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, Ch. 4

Her residency has been dedicated to the development of an entirely new body of work in various media that consider the nest as an object in space and time, but also as a marker of symbolic and emotional content. NEST explores the human relationship to birds’ nests as both objects and emotional spaces. These are liminal and contradictory things: nests are a source of protection and contain the potential for growth and renewal, but nests also remain exposed to the elements, placed in precarious locations, positioned between earth and sky.

The work created for NEST is the basis for further written and visual explorations of these ideas in collaboration with Vancouver poet Catherine Owen (www.catherineowen.org).

A word on the Residency from Sydney:

“The Artist-in-Residence Program at Harcourt House is a tremendous opportunity to devote an entire uninterrupted year to the production of a coherent body of new work. It is a rare thing for an artist to be provided with the the kind of support Harcourt House provides through this program -  support for artists to take real risks and develop their practice within a creative community. I feel very fortunate to be granted this opportunity to be a part of the Harcourt House community, and to contributing actively to it now and in the future.”

Sydney will be in her studio on these dates and at these times. Feel free to pop in and check out what she is working on! Wednesdays, Noon – 6pm, Thursdays, 9am – 5pm and Friday, 10am – 5pm

http://www.sydneylancaster.com/