A collage exhibit illustrating the beauty of complex systems like social networks, cities, the human brain, and even the entire universe is coming to the ACT Art Gallery.
Langley-based artist Amy J. Dyck and Vancouver-based artist Monique Motut-Firth are behind the exhibit called Intricate Arrangements: Connotations in Collage and their work will be on display until the end of February.
Dyck primarily works in self-portraiture and figurative imagery, and is a mix of representational and abstract expressionism. She uses a combination of collages, oil paints, and drawings, and pulls from anatomical studies and visual research.
Her work in this exhibit depicts the complexity of the bodily system and the human condition.
Dyck has shown her work in collections across North America and the world.
“Usually, I start my creative process by sitting down with photographs, paint, paper, and mixed media supplies. I cut, connect, disconnect, smear, and experiment until a figure with a sense of honest complexity and embodied presence emerges,” explained Dyck in her artist statement.
“These small works on paper are finished works themselves but are also often the inspiration for larger paintings and sculptures as I continue to explore,” she added.
Dyck explained that her work explores what it feels like to be, “human, alive, limited, with all the vulnerability, yearning, resilience, and complexity inherent inside us.”
In 2022 she took first place in an international online contest called Face Forward Art Portrait Prize, and in 2021 she received an honourable mention in the Blue Review Art Prize out of New York. The same year she also took second place in the Concept, Federation of Canadian Artists, Federation Gallery in Vancouver, and was long-listed in the Women United Art Prize in the Czech Republic.
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Motut-Firth is a multidisciplinary visual artist, writer, and arts educator who works primarily in paper, paint, and animation.
Her work in collage illustrates the ideas of motion and machine movement using cutouts from magazines, books, catalogues, and print ephemera.
Motut-Firth is the recipient of a Canada Council for the Arts 2021, Explore and Create grant. She has also been recognized for her animation shorts and has won awards from the Simon Fraser University Small File Media Festival and the Cairo Video Festival in collaboration with sound artist prOphecy sun.
In 2019, Motut-Firth was a finalist for the Georgia Straight and Capture Photography Festival Canada Line Competition and a finalist for the Vancouver Arts Society Emerging Artist Award in 2016. A solo exhibition called CONSUMED at Gallery 1515 was a selected exhibition for the Capture Photography Festival in 2017.
Motut-Firth is a graduate of the Master of Fine Arts Visual Arts program at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, and her work has been shown both nationally and internationally.
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Intricate Arrangements: Connotations in Collage runs from Saturday, Jan. 7, until Saturday, Feb. 25.
Opening Reception takes place from 2-4 p.m. on Jan. 7.
The show will also feature a free Inside/Out Tour and Talk on the process of collage making at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 4 by guest speaker Aimée Henny Brown, assistant professor in Foundations, 3D and Extended Media at the University of the Fraser Valley.
This will have limited seating and registration will be required.
To register or for more information about the exhibit go to theactmapleridge.org/intricate-arrangements.
The gallery is open 10-4 p.m. from Tuesday to Saturday.
The ACT Art Gallery is located at 11944 Haney Place, Maple Ridge.
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