Artistic perspectives on the Vancouver urban landscape will be on display at Deer Lake Gallery in June.
Urban Shift, featuring the works of Carolina de la Cajiga and Martha Jablonski-Jones, is on at the gallery from Saturday, June 9 to Saturday, June 30. An opening reception is set for June 9 at noon.
Both artists’ works are shaped by their personal relationships to the city, expressed through manipulated photographic images and painting.
A press release notes that de la Cajiga’s work focuses on the hasty changes our cities are going through. Each work is composed of multiple photographs, which she stitches together and layers digitally.
“Photography allows de la Cajiga to move buildings to new settings, to reshape, reduce or enlarge them,” it says. “The creation process involves a bit of architecture, engineering, city planning and lots of imagination.”
Jablonski-Jones’ paintings address our relationships to urban settings. The release notes that her work is divided into three layers: the visual, metaphorical and emotional considerations. Visual considerations look at the intersecting lines, juxtapositions and perspectives of urban structures as they configure a space. Metaphorically, massive hydro structures suggest ideas about balance of power: the human-made versus the natural, the powerful versus the powerless. Emotionally, the works address the unease about affordability in the city and the choice between being able to stay and having to leave.
“It is on these three levels that Jablonski-Jones attempts to capture a constellation of love, regret and entanglement with a city,” the release says.
Two artist talks will be held during the exhibition: de la Cajiga on Saturday, June 16 at 2 p.m., and Jablonski-Jones on Saturday, June 23 at 2 p.m.
For more information, see www.burnabyartscouncil.org or call 604-298-7322. Deer Lake Gallery is at 6584 Deer Lake Ave.
