The names of things

The names of things
Terry Billings, Zachari Logan, Stacia Verigin
September 28 to January 6, 2013
Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Canada

In their diverse mixed media works, drawings and sculpture, Terry Billings, Zachari Logan, and Stacia Verigin explore the complex relationships between human experience and the natural world. Their work engages with natural forms and imagery to challenge assumptions about nature and consider the beauty and mystery of the world around us.

Terry Billings’ mixed media works sit in the charged space between knowledge and intuition. Billings has created works of art using wasp nest paper and plumage to explore the contradictions between the established scientific understanding of biological life forms and her personal experience of the non-human world.

Zachari Logan’s provocative drawings investigate masculine representation in contemporary society. The large-scale chalk pastel drawing from his Eunuch Tapestry series is based upon a number of remarkable, 15^th-century textile works featuring unicorn subject matter. Logan extrapolates on the historical unicorn narrative to explore notions of sexuality, desire, domesticity, and love.

Stacia Verigin’s sculptures are inspired by her enchantment with the beauty and diversity of nature. Through a process of experimentation, discovery, and play, she eloquently transforms materials such as sawdust and glue into natural looking forms. Her work invites curious inspection; the viewer is challenged to resolve the tension between natural and unnatural, fiction and reality.

The human perspective on understandings of nature is a tangle of historical perspectives, personal experience, public and private interests. The names of things aims to tease out some of these issues through the poignant, humorous, and imaginative works of three Saskatoon artists.

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