On Saturday, October 31, three new art exhibitions will open at Burrard Arts Foundation (BAF).
Two of the shows were produced by the latest participants in BAF’s Residency Program, painter and new media artist Michael Edward Miller and interaction designer and visual artist Eli Muro. During the program, the two artists worked side-by-side in the two studios at BAF’s purpose-designed facility in the False Creek Flats. Also opening is new work from Haley Bassett in BAF's Garage; this street facing exhibition window displays art to the public 24 hours a day and showcases early-career artists.
With Michael Edward Miller's new site-specific installation, 'We were once here', he finds a way to make interactive art COVID-safe: through light and shadow. Using pigments that both absorb and emit light, he creates a blank, glowing stage for the viewer to creatively project upon. Informed by a childhood spent feeling safer and more empowered by the virtual realm than the material one, the new work brings the comfort of virtuality into meatspace.
In 'Genuine Fakes', Eli Muro investigates the nature of our reality using the very same tools with which we construct it. Equal parts witty and dark—and often both simultaneously—the exhibition points with one hand to technologies of hope, humour, and possibility, and with the other to tools of social control, fulcrums of power, and surveillance capitalism.
Haley Bassett's 'Snare' is an abstract, three-dimensional drawing created from blackberry canes and steel wire. From a distance, the blackberry creates a composition of brilliant red, sweeping marks in space. However, closer inspection reveals the thorny and sinister aspect of these materials. 'Snare' continues Bassett's investigation into the nature of trauma; she has chosen to use blackberry because of its aggressive and invasive nature.
The public is invited to the exhibition’s by-appointment, socially distanced opening day from 2-7pm on Saturday, October 31. Free tickets can be reserved on Eventbrite.
These exhibitions will be on view until December 19. The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday, from 12-5pm.
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More information about BAF’s COVID-19 safety procedures can be found on BAF’s website, along with more information about Eli Muro, Michael Edward Miller, and Haley Bassett's exhibitions.