Arts & Culture

Artist Vanessa Brown’s upcoming exhibition includes various elements including this steel shrimp sculpture.

Image courtesy of the artist and Patel Brown

Artist’s upcoming exhibition explores holes

By Hannah Scott

Published 11:54 PDT, Fri September 2, 2022

Last Updated: 3:22 PDT, Mon September 26, 2022

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Artist Vanessa Brown, who grew up in Richmond, will exhibit her work at the Richmond Art Gallery from Sept. 9 to Nov. 6.

“As a child I was always making art, and I never stopped being creative,” says Brown. “Even before I went to art school I was always in the performance collective, taking classes for silkscreening or making something, I always had creative projects on the go (but) didn’t really know whether I could or should do this as a career.”

Brown ended up going to Emily Carr University of Art and Design as a mature student and graduated in 2013 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. She typically works in metal sculpture and has used steel as a principal material, recently doing some work with aluminum and bronze.

The upcoming exhibition That Other Hunger will also incorporate lots of video, a medium that Brown hadn’t worked with since graduating from university. The pandemic made her workshop-based metal practice challenging, but also allowed more time to explore video and digital collage.

“What inspires me about art making is that, in many different forms, art has (the capacity) to communicate something that words can’t,” she says. “Exploring the capacities that art has is something that motivates me.”

The upcoming exhibition has three sections and focuses on an exploration of holes in different forms. There are many ways that humans encounter holes on societal and personal levels.

“I think, in Western art history, we get taught that there’s positive and negative space. But I don’t believe that negative space really exists,” she says.

Brown adds that the unique shape of the gallery is exciting to work with, although tricky.

“In thinking about how I wanted this exhibition to come together, I didn’t want the work to be fighting with the environment in any way,” she says. “When you work in sculpture and installations, the layout becomes very important.”

The first section is very dark, with three tall vertical video screens that act as doorways or portals. The video on the screens involves travelling through a portal and landing in different spaces, looped to a soundscape composed by Michelle Helene Mackenzie. The videos are accompanied by large textiles of digital collage prints.

“I knew that I wanted to try to work with textiles. I have materials that I’m comfortable with, (but) most exciting as an artist is to push yourself and try working in new ways. Sometimes you surprise yourself, sometimes you disappoint yourself,” says Brown.

The second room includes shrimp and crabs made out of steel, as well as red gel lights to mimic infrared. In the third room there is a longer video and potentially some other elements, including seating.

Art has been a community-building experience for Brown, who has artist peers and friends of all ages. Mentorship has been another important element of her artistic journey.

“Being able to connect with artists across geographies and distances, and build connections and friendships through art, is an extremely beautiful and special thing,” she says. “(There’s) such a special gift that I get from pursuing art that’s not directly related to what I make, and I find that motivating and unique and special.”

Brown hopes That Other Hunger will be an experiential process for viewers, given its variety of sensorial experiences and saturated sound and lighting.

“Even if you don’t leave with one specific concept or takeaway, it’s important to feel you are in the presence of something interesting and compelling, and something that could take your own experiences or connections and make you think,” she says.

For more information, visit richmondartgallery.org/otherhunger