This week, Zavitz Gallery features “Actuality,” an exhibition of paintings, drawings, and collages by Chelsea Brant. It opened on Oct. 27, and runs until Oct. 31. I wandered through the gallery with Taylor Avery, a first-year English major, and Alyssa Logan, a first-year Psychology major, talking about the work. This is a selection from our conversation:
Taylor: I don’t know if I would’ve gotten this if the title of the show wasn’t Actuality, but the monochromatic pictures by the door are the actuality of life. That’s a plain, pretty standard house, right? And it’s in black and white, so, I don’t want to say it’s boring, but it’s … standard? And then it moves into the more colourful works.
Will: So you’re reading this left to right, like a book.
Taylor: Yeah, I am. These are maybe places that the artist wants to travel, or places that the artist has been. And they’re such vibrant colours because the artist finds them so much more beautiful than the black-and-white reality of the world.
Will: You’ve pointed out that there are different spaces carved out within the gallery. So in one corner, you have the domestic space, and then you move into other spaces, which are more colourful, exotic, and interesting. But one thing I don’t know that we noticed about these black and white drawings is that they’re cut up too.
Alyssa: The house is fragmented, like it’s been broken. I don’t see it as two separate houses. I see it as one big house, but it’s been torn apart.
Taylor: But it could also be a progression of the artist’s life – different houses they have lived in.
Alyssa: They feel like they’re from the past. I just get the feeling from the colours. It’s almost
like you’re taken back into the past.
Will: On the one hand, we’ve got the black and white drawings that represent a certain space and also maybe a certain time, and then we’ve got the colour paintings that take us to different places and different times. And what do you guys think about the collages? The fact that the collages are mounted in these glass boxes creates a certain depth of field.
Taylor: Usually shadow boxes contain something 3D. Here, they’re trying to project a third dimension onto a landscape.
Will: So the fact that they’re in the shadow boxes lends the 2D images a three-dimensional quality. But it also reinforces the fact that they’re really just collages. These are actual collages, and the rest of the works seem to be paintings of collages, right down to the tape that holds the collages together. What do you think about that?
Alyssa: I feel like the pieces of tape are little imperfections in the paintings. They all look beautiful, but there are these little tiny pieces that they’re trying to cover up. They definitely stand out, so maybe they’re trying to attract you to certain parts that you wouldn’t necessarily see.
