Artistic duo reconfigure work for new exhibit

There is a lot to figure out when you stop into the Art Gallery of St. Albert tomorrow. The first thing that comes to my mind is whether or not shadows can be considered art. Viewers should also have a lengthy philosophical debate as to what kind of art Claire Uhlick’s half of this show actually is.

reconFIGURE is the name of the new exhibit by Edmonton’s Uhlick and St. Albert’s Samantha Williams-Chapelsky, both having already made names for themselves in the city. In June, Uhlick installed one of the city’s newest and most intricate pieces of public art. Called Through the Tides, the 106-tile big project features many individual two-dimensional fish dancing through an imaginary sea located on the wall in the Landrex Water Play Centre at Servus Credit Union Place.

Here, she steps away from the kiln and toward the cutting board. Her side of this new show features a series of spindly shapes made from paper, acrylic paint, ink and graphite powder. To define them is a great challenge, meaning that you’ll pretty much have to see them for yourself.

She explained where she gets the ideas to create these cleverly shaped objects.

“I am inspired by the dynamic mark of liquid paint,” she began. “The honesty of free-flowing paint as it is poured, dripped and splattered is a mark that cannot be captured with a brush.”

She added that she experiments with mark-making to develop the web-like imagery. It’s made almost entirely from intricately cut paper, but with many pieces, she draws shadows on the background or on the wall to aid in her artistic direction.

“I am fascinated with the fleeting and deceptive qualities of shadows. These drawn shadows enhance the three-dimensionality of the work, and overlap with the natural shadows from the gallery lights. Often the illusion is such that it becomes hard to tell which shadows are drawn.”

“My work blurs the lines between painting, drawing, and sculpture. The resulting imagery are traces which document the movement of fluid paint. My work aims to capture the spontaneity, ephemerality and energy of these marks. Animated by light and shadow, this delicate work seems to have a growing energy, almost a life of its own.”

Whereas Through the Tides was an exercise in grandiose emotionality, her new series here is more about the fine details and forcing the viewer to focus on the little things.

“In the last few years, my work has become much smaller and more delicate than before. I have found there is so much potential working with paper; I feel the possibilities are endless.”

As for her partner in this interesting visual duet, Samantha Williams-Chapelsky is in the rare position of actually working for the gallery. By a simple twist of fate, she is now in the position of installing her own art.

Semantics aside, she is earning her way up the ladder by seemingly being omnipresent and always working. In April, she started showing up at some of the boutique ArtWalk venues while starting to prepare a show that will be opening in India this October. Before that, she had a show at the University of Alberta. Currently, she already has new works up at Edmonton’s Daffodil Gallery along 124 Street.

Then there’s the small matter of her designing the artistic trophies for next month’s Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts Awards.

One must wonder where she gets all of the energy to even create, after all the time she must put in to just keep up with all of her activities and obligations.

“It’s a little crazy,” she admitted, “but I guess I’ll take it as it goes. This is my first real shot at trying to be an artist in my own rights.”

The keystone of each of these emotional abstract works is a kind of ethereal figure with a landscaped background that always makes me think of what the surfaces of Mars and Venus must look like.

She explained that she still starts from classical sources.

“I look a lot of Baroque and Romantic landscapes. Those are awe-inspiring landscapes. For me, figurative work is based in nature.”

This explains why the figure and the ground seem to be so intertwined with each other. She says that the figures emerge from the landscape or are somehow mixed in with the landscape, making the viewer wonder where one stops and the other begins.

All I can wonder is if she ever stops working.

“The art world is either feast or famine. I’m happy to get the bits and pieces that I can, and obviously I put out tons of applications. I’ll take up anything I can.”