WEIRD AND TENUOUS
Gallery takes first show outside
The sun slowly spiders across the late August sky, sending insistent new patterns of light through the glass artwork in the backyard gallery. One thing you can say about outdoor art: it’s as inherently dynamic as the shifting weather.
But the main reason Lowlands Project Spaces is having its first show outside is a little thing you might have heard of called COVID -19.
While many of the city’s galleries are open and functioning well within safety protocols, in the case of this new gallery and residency space over in Highlands, at 11208 65 St., no adjustment was necessary, it was just born this way … a little weird, somewhat tenuous — and much appreciated amid all the stories of art-friendly spaces crumbling to dust during this tedious pandemic.
But gallery director and curator Steven Teeuwsen actually owes the very existence of Lowlands Project Space to this weird, liminal new world we all now live in.
“I think the reason we have this opportunity is it’s the year it is,” he says in the double backyard, sparrows counting to infinity in the background. “It really was birthed out of uncertain times. That’s why the first show is called Castles of Butter. We’re all building on uncertainty. We don’t know if what we’re making is going to last. Especially this space,” he says matter of factly, with a little smile. “It likely won’t.”
While Teeuwsen himself is a continuous worm of creative output in Edmonton going back at least 15 years, he has worn a fair number of hats, to say the least, including being the so-called local “Hot Santa” last year, absorbing to the wishes of children.
Returning from living in Asia, he started the wonderful, glossy local art magazine Notebook in 2006, notable for its artist-on-artist Q&AS and gorgeous reproductions of the work found around here. For many artists, it was their first time in a magazine — and it got Teeuwsen used to working with multiple, distinct creative personalities.
“I knew nothing about the arts scene or running a magazine,” he laughs. “I started it at the end of a lot of publications closing. It was destined to not have a long lifespan, just the way print media was going, and went.”
When Notebook curled up for a forever nap in 2010, Teeuwsen studied design at Grant Macewan, ending up curating for Nextfest for six years, stepping down last year, but also painting — including the rare walls at North Country Fair and a lovely green mural in Kingsway Mall’s indoor gallery.
“I was really interested in doing my own work, and thought that was what I was going to be doing with my time. But through that whole process I was always looking at having an art space, working on different models on having an artist-run centre.”
Teeuwsen is dating Edmonton muralist Jill Stanton, and the two decided to move in together. “When we looked at renting this house, there was the opportunity to rent the house next door as a commercial space, and so we pounced on it. It gave me that opportunity to try that dream that I had for 10 years.
“I knew if I didn’t do something at 39 I would feel sh---- about it. I’m frequently doing things on par with people much younger than me,” he laughs.
“Like when I started Notebook, this is a wild time to start a gallery. But the constraints of the pandemic and the restrictions on gatherings have dictated what we’re doing with the space, which is why we’re doing it outside for the first couple shows.
“Constraints make things interesting. And this show is really birthed out of the kind of year 2020 was.”
Up in a mountain ash tree is a shimmering mutant blob with accidentally realistic deer-like legs — actual tree trunks. Over near the alley, Roseanna Nay and Brad Fehr have built a meticulously arranged menagerie of salvaged bottles and glass bricks, saved from a sincedestroyed 1970s bungalow, which feels like animal architecture — giant birds with Lego sets looking to attract a mate, perhaps.
And, as a sort of established sentinel, one of Paul Freeman’s life-size, Gamma World caribou is painted in radioactive colours, sprouting antlers from all over its body as an awkward defence mechanism. There’s a vibe of unsure survival here, as if the animals have learned perhaps too well how to mimic dumb humanity — or that the lines between everything have sat out in the rain too long.
“It’s a really diverse show in terms of medium and subject matter,” Teeuwsen says. “Adrianne Lee is working with animal hides. Raneece
Buddan is carving a reductive sculpture out of a tree trunk with a chainsaw and big sanding discs on a grinder.
“I’ve been coming back working on the fence, and Raneese, also one of the artists doing a residency here, is grinding away with a really great burning-wood smell, and it just feels like the workshop, Maya (Candler) and Kaida (Kobylka) are working with papier-mâché and paint and cellophane and tinsel to create this alien growth, with this warm light of a heart inside it.”
Other artists in the show include Borys Tarasenko, Dara Humniski, Haylee Fortin, Morgan Melenka, Nasarimba, Roseanna Nay and Brad Fehr.
An open call for artworks, upcoming residencies and guest curatorial positions will come soon, but right now Castles of Butter stands as a successful proof of concept.
“It all feels really good,” says the curator. “I just got back from Calgary, picking up Nasarimba’s piece, and when I got back there’s three artists working in the yard, just a lot going on: chaotic.”
The show’s title, “castles of butter,” is what local band Bad Buddy’s Emily Bachynski called Teeuwsen’s various yard projects at the last teardown house he recently had to move out of — and the phrase quite fits the overall vibe.
“I don’t know how long it’ll last,” he says. “But I really love it because no one knows where we’ll be a year from now, anyway. So you may as well just make what you can.”