Beyond Vague Terrain

Note: A fab­ri­cated image from a con­struc­tion site in South Sur­rey Helma Sawatzky, The Phoenix Com­plex (2012) c-print. Cour­tesy of the artist and Elliott Luis Gallery

Art lovers: check out Beyond Vague Ter­rain: The City and the Ser­ial Image, which opens at the Sur­rey Art Gallery this Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 14th.

Show­cas­ing the way Metro Van­cou­ver is always chang­ing and simul­ta­ne­ously offer­ing “beauty and banal­ity” in its sprawl­ing sub­urbs and mer­cu­r­ial neigh­bour­hoods, the exhibit includes 13 artists and fea­tures video, pho­tog­ra­phy, paint­ing and drawing.

High­lights include “a grid of shim­mer­ing graphite rub­bings of eroded date-stamped side­walks on Vancouver’s West­side, a 109 foot long light box pre­sent­ing a panorama of Metro Van­cou­ver as seen from a mov­ing Sky­Train, and an inter­ac­tive pho­to­graphic data­base of every bus stop in Sur­rey.” A depar­ture from postcard-perfect views of down­town Van­cou­ver, much of the work focuses on “street inter­sec­tions, indus­trial dead zones, and sub­ur­ban sprawl,” to chal­lenge our ideas about urban­ity, mar­gin­al­iza­tion and history.

Beyond Vague Ter­rain: The City and the Ser­ial Image

Sur­rey Art Gallery

13750 88 Ave, Sur­rey, British Columbia

Jan­u­ary 14th– March 18th, 2012

By dona­tion

Open­ing recep­tion: Jan­u­ary 14th, 7:00PM-9:00PM