SUBMITTED BY SALT SPRING ARTS
An exhibition bursting with joyful colour nevertheless contains an important warning about the future in Artcraft’s final Showcase exhibition of 2024.
Opening Friday, Aug. 30, The Beholders’ Share is a solo show featuring contemporary textile artist Shannon Wardroper, who speaks to climate change, biodiversity loss and the ability to choose better outcomes in both large sculptural works and 2-D wall art.
The exhibition title stems from an art term describing how past personal history shapes viewers’ experience of art, whether that be enjoyment, elation, bewilderment, disgust or boredom.
“The idea that a viewer brings personal history and meaning to a work, that the brain indeed finishes the work, that this interplay makes all art a collaboration between artist and audience, seems akin to life itself. Communication, collaboration and respect between us, others and our natural environment are vital to thrive,” Wardroper explains in her artist’s statement.
Wardroper has lived on Salt Spring for the past 18 years. She holds a masters degree in arts education and studied at the Alberta College of Art, as well as formally at Chiang Mai University, Thailand, and informally in Kyoto, Japan. She has exhibited nationally and internationally.
The artist employs wax-resist dying in a myriad of complex colour combinations on screen-printed silk, using acid dye and ancient Japanese kimono dying techniques. In the case of the sculptural pieces, Wardroper also adds machine and hand embroidery, applique and free-form stitching.
The imagery depicts what we have to lose or may have already lost in the natural world due to human-caused climate change, as well as some of the industrial causes. The sculptural pieces are meanwhile based on a children’s fortune-teller game that is normally made with a folded piece of paper yielding multiple potential outcomes. This structure highlights the choice-versus-chance interactive nature of the game, especially the impact of human choices on the environment.
“The layered and detailed imagery of flora and fauna — a celebration of the earth’s lush and colourful environmental diversity — is contrasted with images relating to degradation and disruption: pipelines, fishnets, ocean warming data and viruses,” Wardroper’s statement notes. “Youth will be the most impacted by our choices, or lack thereof. This is represented, almost tragically, by the fortune-teller game they themselves make and play.”
An opening reception will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 30, in combination with a Salt Spring Arts Council members’ appreciation night, with discount sales. An artist talk will follow on Sunday, Sept. 1 at 2 p.m. The showcase will be open during Artcraft hours, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily at Mahon Hall, through Sept. 22.