The future is already here: Alex McLeod and Brendan Tang

January 19 to March 24, 2013

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Brendan Tang, Manga Ormolu 5.0-c, 2009. Collection, Kamloops Art Gallery

What if the cyberworld of video games entered the frame of
19th century western landscape painting? Or if Ming Dynasty-style
ceramic vessels fused with the cartoon pop of contemporary
anime? Artists Alex McLeod and Brendan Tang deploy an arsenal of Asian
and Western historical styles, science fiction, popular culture, and new
technologies as they combine ceramics, photography, and projected video
to create mesmerizing fantasy worlds that probe the boundaries between
the real and the virtual.

The heart of this exhibition is a collaborative mixed-media
installation by Tang and McLeod that blends digital projection with
ceramic sculpture. Each artist is also represented by a selection of
independent work. Inspired by video games, Romantic landscape paintings,
and dioramas, McLeod’s surreal environments depicted in large panoramic
photographs exist in their own indeterminate time and space. Brendan
Tang’s colourful and wildly incongruous Manga Ormolu ceramic vessels
fuse Asian and Western historical decorative styles with pop art forms
derived from Japanese anime and manga. Guest curated by Rachel Lafo.

Ornamentalism: Clint Neufeld and Dirk Staschke

January 19 to March 24, 2013

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Dirk Staschke, Wishing Well, Knowing Otherwise; ceramic and mixed media. Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Jones.

Everyday forms – from furniture and fruit to car engines and
confections – are transformed into poignant allegories of desire,
labour, and leisure by these two virtuoso ceramic sculptors.

Beyond the Vessel’s Edge: Ceramics from the Permanent Collection

January 19 to March 24, 2013

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Ian Johnston, R14 hip - f, ankle - f, 2005; stoneware with terra sigillata. Collection of the Surrey Art Gallery, gift of Stephanie Fischer.

The functional gives way to the sculptural in this collection
of ceramics by artists John Chalke, Tam Irving, Ian Johnston, Sally
Michener, Alwyn O’Brien, Linda Stanbridge, and Diana Lynn Thompson.

Surrey Art Gallery is located in the Surrey Arts Centre
13750 – 88 Avenue
Surrey, BC Canada V3W 3L1
1 block east of King George Blvd, in Bear Creek Park

Phone: 604-501-5566
Fax:. 604-501-5581
EMail: [email protected]
www.surrey.ca/culture-recreation/1564.aspx