Carolyn Wren: Searching for the Sublime
Ontario-based artist Carolyn Wren approached her solo exhibition in our small gallery space as a site-specific installation. She had completed the preliminary work before her arrival, and the rest she worked while she was here to install. Using tissue paper dress patterns that have the printed outlines of the fabric pieces to be cut out, marks where darts are to be sewn, etc., Wren has wrapped the gallery walls as though they are the bodies being fitted. Her imagery is the Romantic landscape, rendered in brush and ink in an old-fashioned, topographic approach. Known for her physical and conceptual extension of the traditional graphic media, Wren conflates the body and the landscape here in ways that pertain to non-Western conceptions of nature. She is interested in histories, mapping, the nature/culture relationship and nineteenth-century image formats, all of which enter into this complex and highly beautiful work.
