Exhibition Dates: September 8 – October 20, 2023
Opening Reception: Friday September 8, 2023 @ 5 – 8 pm
Artist talk: Saturday September 9, 2023 @ 1pm
In-person and livestream via Zoom
This talk is free to attend and open to the public.
Exhibition Text by Sonali Menezes
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Martha Street Studio is pleased to present Echoes, a solo exhibition by Alana MacDougall (MB).
Echoes explores remembered, reinterpreted, and reimagined imagery generated by medical imaging technology. The schematization of forms allows them to defy easy categorization, simultaneously suggesting the cells, organs, geological formations, or the celestial. In addition to reflecting on the abstract nature of medical imagery, the work explores mortality, and the vulnerability of our bodies in the context of illness and western medical intervention. The artist draws on her experience as a patient to explore psychological impacts of cultural and systemic norms on communication and agency.
Echoes investigates this schematic imagery through linocut embossing, silkscreen printing, drawing, and ceramic sculpture (often in combination). MacDougall combines a plurality of methods of production in this exhibition. Sometimes beginning by drawing before scanning, printing, and reworking with drawing again, MacDougall also uses materials and processes connected to linocut printing to emboss images onto porcelain clay. Print strategies are explored in three dimensions through hand-altered cast-porcelain multiples.
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Alana MacDougall holds a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) from the University of Manitoba (2014) and a Master of Fine Art from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York (2016). She is a multi-disciplinary artist working primarily in drawing, print-making, and sculpture. Alana explores ideas around the body, communication, and the abstract nature of medical imagery. She has exhibited in Canada, the United States, and Australia and has taught as a sessional instructor at the University of Manitoba since 2018.