Gordon Snelgrove Gallery
Department of Art and Art History
Gallery Hours: 9am – 4:30pm
October 1 – 5, 2012
Reception: October 4, 7 ! 10pm
Sometimes when Gordon Snelgrove squints his eyes, he can’t see the difference between Arcadia
and Hades.
Anya Hamman
Alexandra Thiesson
MIDDLE GROUND
In Patterns…
Anya Hamman’s work is deceiving. Lyrical scenes of agricultural work and rest belie the tumultuous
social and political backdrop that provides the artist with her catalysts. Hamman grew up in Northern
Cape, a South African province characterized by its low population density and high proportion of
Afrikaner residents. After immigrating to Canada just five years ago, the artist’s beautiful, but
apparently mundane genre paintings become morality tales for the limits of the eye.
Alexandra Thiesson’s densely layered images are built up slowly and methodically, like tapestries –
using chalk pastel and conté. Saturated with vivid colours, rich in photorealistic detail with clearly
identifiable figures, the pictures in this exhibit are as much compendiums of abstract pattern and
colour as they are portraits. While portraitists typically concentrate on the eyes or hands to reveal
character, Thiesson’s subjects are engulfed, and even diminished by their lush backdrops, which
operate as stand-ins for the usual tropes of the genre.
Reception: Thursday, October 4, 7 ! 10pm
Please contact the gallery for press photos and further information.
Marcus Miller, Gordon Snelgrove Gallery Director
191 Murray Bldg. University of Saskatchewan 3 Campus Dr. Saskatoon SK S7N 5A4
306-966-4208 marcus.miller@usask.ca www.usask.ca/snelgrove