What becomes of packaged material after consumers and companies dump it?
That’s the subject of an exhibit that opened this month at Coquitlam’s Place des Arts.
Diana Durrand, Claire Moore and Jo-Ann Sheen — all founding members of the Fort Gallery in Fort Langley — used their skills to create beauty in discarded (and often gaudy) paper and packaging.
And each artist had different ways to show how they view those kinds of remains.
Durrand found her inspiration while on a dog walk one night. On the ground, a moonbeam hit a shape that looked to her like a Japanese kimono.
On closer inspection, however, it was a flattened McDonald’s french fry container.
Her mixed media series of “McMonos” contrasts the 17th century formal robe with 21st century packaging — a kind of east meets west of traditional ways versus modern trash.
By contrast Moore, who immigrated to Canada more than two decades ago, delved into photos by Zwelethu Mthethwa and Ronnie Levitan, who snapped the guts of ghettos in her native South Africa in the 1980s and ‘90s.
The shacks they documented were wallpapered with print run ends and Moore said she drew a “nostalgic association” from the images into her work.
“I wanted to explore how people keep that packaging in their memory bank for years and years,” she said.
She also referenced Cape Dorset printmaking in her series (shown in Kenojuak).
Meanwhile, Sheen examined the mountains of garbage that heads to the landfill or recycling plant and their original purposes. Through her study, she altered their context.
The trio’s display will be in Place des Arts’ Mezzanine Gallery until Feb. 6. Also showing this month are The Selective Eye (Suite ‘E’ Life Drawing Group) in the Atrium Gallery and Fragments of Life (Anson Aguirre Firth) in the Leonore Peyton Salon.
