Steve Higgins: All Things Considered

Thoughts about Cities and History, War and Peace

November 5 to December 31, 2011

Halifax-based artist Steve Higgins works in drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. Examples of his work in all these media will be included in this nationally touring show when it comes to Kelowna. His areas of concern centre on architecture and the built environment. The work is restrained, refined and highly elegant. It is also dark, dense and enigmatic. Four large etchings, four vitrines made of MDF with cutaway views into excavated urban models, and a suite of monoprints comprise the show. The etchings are heavily worked, imagined floorplans of buildings that never existed, but seem plausible enough. These works have a convincing gravitas and straightforwardness that nudge us to swallow whole the notion of their inherent truth. The excavated, dystopian models, all in black, are all called Urban. Given the City of Kelowna’s machinations during the last few years over the thorny issues involved in urban development, the work in this show might provide topical and timely food for thought.

This exhibition was curated by Ihor Holubizky and was organized collaboratively by the Confederation Centre Art Gallery, in Charlottetown, PEI, the Dalhousie Art Gallery in Halifax, the McMaster Museum of Art at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and the Kelowna Art Gallery. It is accompanied by a catalogue with reproductions of the works in the show and texts by Ihor Holubkizky, Liz Wylie, Peter Dykhuis, Cliff Eyland, and Jeanne Randolph.

Steve Higgins Interview at the KAG

Also, listen to the CBC Radio West Interview with Steve Higgins [click here]