October 20th to December 1st, 2011
Opening Reception : Thursday, October 20th at 7PM
Artist Talk : TBA
Rivers and Skies
Lenka Novakova
Born in the Czech Republic, now living in Ste-Marthe, Quebec
An installation in the main gallery.
Rivers and Skies is an installation project exploring the relationship of two elements through interconnection of art and science. It is a body of work consisting of several thematically related installations combining sculptural structures as optical instruments with simple technologies and cinema. The project initiated as a research on optics and perception in relationship to space and installation. It was followed by two fellowships with Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New york; and Urban Glass, Brooklyn, New York, in 2009. These fellowships provided support for production of the proposed optical instruments fabricated in lead crystal glass commonly used in optics as superior glass material for its clarity. Several large glass lenses, glass prisms as well as other optical instruments form and alter perceptive experience of space. They create, metaphorically and physically, a ‘lens’ through which to explore the relationship between the visual perception and physical observation. Further, the project proposes an exploration of the relationship of light specified work and environment, as well as relationship between object and viewer.
Lenka Novakova’s practice is concerned with an ephemeral poetic quality, a moment of recreation and reflective thought through constructed environments, simple technologies, and moving light with crossover in cinema and theatre technologies. Within this foundation the artist explores qualities of space, architectural environments, and installation by means of moving light. Light transforms and deconstructs space by marking, occupying, illuminating, and dramatically staging it. Light also conditions the way we see our world and the way we feel. Novakova is interested in both light as a medium of perception as well as a medium of representation with its impact on the visual and architectural transformation of space affecting our sensory and perceptual systems.
Lenka Novakova has exhibited extensively in Canada over the last four years and internationally in the USA. She has completed residencies this year at La Chambre Blanche and Est-Nord-Est, both in Quebec. She has scheduled solo shows in 2010 at Estevan Art Gallery and Museum, Estevan, SK; Oboro, Montreal, QC; Hamilton Artist, Inc, Hamilton, ON; and exhibited this year at Grimsby Public Art Gallery, Grimsby, ON.
