Material World: A Reading Room

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Stanley Brunst, Robert Hurley, Robert Christie, Gathie Falk, John Hall, Leslie Saunders, Iain Baxter, Ann James, Stanley Day, Stephen Andrews, Heather Cline, and Charles Ringness

This interpretive exhibition explores the way in which objects in our lives hold a significance greater than just their practical function or aesthetic nature. Utilizing still life paintings, drawing and sculpture from the Mendel Art Gallery's permanent collection, this exhibition investigates the way in which we choose to define ourselves by the material goods we possess. Material culture throughout history has been represented in art by still life painting. The genre of still life is an inteRegina Public Libraryay between the animate and inanimate, the moving and the motionless, the quick and the dead. A still life painting, an object itself, ironically depicts the material and philosophical tastes of its intended patrons. In order to discover who people are we often interpret the possessions they own. The object in a still life painting; be it a flower, a wine bottle or a skull, have a deliberate significance beyond the beauty or realism of the image. Still life artwork tells us a story about the artists, his/her patrons, and the society in which the artwork was created. Material World employs the genre of still life art making to explore contemporary culture's beliefs, values, ideas, and attitudes through its consumerist behaviour.

Material World (Installation View), 2004.