This being the week I write my 6-8 exhibition previews for Preview, the bi- and sometimes tri-monthly guide that has been serving the Pacific Northwest (from Campbell River to Cannon Beach!) since 1986, though I have not been with the magazine that long.
Yesterday I wrote a preview of Alison Yip's current show at the CAG, which I enjoyed for the most part. I began with a recollection of her 2016 contribution to the VAG's Vancouver Special Triennial, where she painted the alcoves of the rotunda, but especially the walls around them. These walls were given a white-on-black diagonal lattice motif treatment with periodic breaks that felt like violence -- "portals" that allowed the city and the exhibition to converse.
Sure enough, that crappy big box store lattice style found its way into one of Alison's current paintings, part of a series of small oils on metal surfaces based on questions asked of a) a psychic (Somatic) and b) a "neo-shaman" (Auratic). Alison's appearance in these pantings is through a proxy form (a mannequin), or let's say an avatar, even though it's clear she is uncomfortable being there -- in any form.
Yip's Soma Topika is up until May 1, 2022.
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