Upcoming exhibitions at SFU Gallery

Raymond Boisjoly, Study for (And) Other Echoes, 2013
Lightjet print and dark bronze Plexiglas. Courtesy the artist

Raymond Boisjoly: (And) Other Echoes
April 27 to August 2, 2013
Opening Friday April 26, 2013, 6-8PM

Raymond Boisjoly's practice operates as active speculation. Through text and graphic presentation his work reveals the provisional character of knowledge. More specifically, his work engages with the mediated representation of Aboriginality. His processes consider not only technology but also transmission (the space between sender and receiver). For example, his series entitled The Writing Lesson renders First Nations place names - Toronto, Chilliwack, Spuzzum, Masset - in black metal typography. Appearing as decorative abstraction, the visually recuperated texts foreground Aboriginal languages within a discourse of text-based strategies in contemporary art. In the near illegibility of the texts, Boisjoly approaches specific cultural belief systems while signaling their parallel near invisibility in our contemporary society.

Concerned with the process of image production and dealing directly with materiality, Boisjoly's works in (And) Other Echoes function at the threshold of visibility. Continuing the artist's examination into technological mediation and its capture of cultural and political intervals, the work takes the 1961 film The Exiles as a source material. w documents one night in the lives of young Aboriginal men and women living in Los Angeles in the late 1950s. Based on interviews with the participants and their friends, the film follows the transplants (from Southwest reservations) through their social networks and through the city.

Boisjoly scans the moving image to obtain still images that register indexically. His process creates a digital image that abstracts and distorts the movement of the playing video (on an iPhone or iPad). These scans are facemounted to a smokey acrylic, merging the surface and image. The titles of these new works are parallel texts rather than commentary, and as Victor Burgin has noted the space between the image and the text is where something "happens." It is this space between that Boisjoly engages with.

Raymond Boisjoly (b. 1981, Langley, BC) lives and works in Vancouver. He is of Haida and Quebecois decent. Since graduating from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (BFA) and University of British Columbia (MFA), his work has been included in solo exhibitions at Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Republic Gallery, Vancouver; and Access Gallery, Vancouver. Selected group exhibitions include Vancouver Art Gallery; Centre A, Vancouver; Power Plant, Toronto; Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver; Western Bridge, Seattle; Or Gallery, Vancouver; Hedreen Gallery at Seattle University.

Free parking available Friday, April 26th 6-8pm only. Use the exhibition invite or a printout from this page as a parking pass. Place on your car dashboard or hand in to parking attendant.

Instant Coffee, Study for The hero, the villain, the salesman,
the parent, a sidekick and a servant, 2013

Instant Coffee: The hero, the villain, the salesman, the parent, a sidekick and a servant
May 11, 2013 - April 27, 2014
Opening Wednesday May 15, 2013, 6-8PM

Instant Coffee presents a new installation that operates as a stage or set for social framing and interaction. Testing the highly trafficked Teck Gallery as a site for socially engaged contemporary art projects, the installation blurs the lines between the work, participants and audience. The hero, the villain, the salesman, the parent, a sidekick and a servant considers theatrical histories and the title evokes stock characters in Victorian melodramas. The work will treat the Teck as the public site that it is, allowing for myriad social activities and configurations to play out within its framework over time.

Instant Coffee is an artist collective based between Vancouver and Toronto. Formed in 2000, the collective’s current active membership includes Jinhan Ko, Khan Lee, Kelly Lycan and Jenifer Papararo in Vancouver, with Cecilia Berkovic and Kate Monro in Toronto. They have shown inter­na­tion­ally, have exhib­ited in many promi­nent art insti­tu­tions, and have pro­duced numer­ous projects in pub­lic space.