kelly mark + thierry delva
sat 17 july – sat 18 september
reception friday 17 september @ 7pm
St. Catharines-on-the-Parking-Lot – Sometimes staying cool is a frame of mind. The Niagara Artists Centre may not be equipped with the luxury of conditioned air but the current exhibit in the Show Room Gallery helps the mind stay off the heat by featuring no fewer than four kitchen fridges.
This fact is just one of the reasons that lOl is the cool show of 2010. NAC has assembled a collection of work by nationally acclaimed artists Thierry Delva (an instructor at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design) and Kelly Mark (originally from Welland) that highlights their unusual combining of the conceptual and the comedic.
lOl shows these artists ongoing use of humour and satire as way to explore ideas. Full up with fridges, hallmarks of the exhibit are The Kiss by Delva, that positions two fridges running hot and cold against one another and a white kitchen fridge that Mark has covered with a seemingly unending handwritten list of things “I really should…” [do].
“I have always had an intense preoccupation with the differing shades of pathos and humour found in the repetitive mundane tasks, routines and rituals of everyday life,” says Mark.
“It’s a homecoming for Kelly” says Stephen Remus, Minister of Energy, Minds and Resources. “And we’ve brought the two artists together for the way their work responds to each other as well how well it fits with NAC’s own forty year history of witty and satirical art projects and exhibits.”
Delva and Mark will be on hand for an artist talk and a closing night reception on Friday 17 September at 7pm.
