Unnatural Landscapes: Vikky Alexander and Kevin Schmidt
Vikky Alexander
State Gallery, Vancouver
November 12 - December 4, 2004
Kevin Schmidt
Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver
November 5 - December 19, 2004
By Catherine MacLennan
Two current exhibitions in Vancouver explore the concept of unnatural landscapes. British Columbians are familiar with the scenic mixing of the natural and unnatural. As one looks towards the North Shore mountains in Vancouver, visible cuts are made in the mountains and trees, for roads and houses. Vancouverites are proud of their mountains, and just as proud of the high real estate prices - rampant capitalism meets the wild outdoors. Paved, "developed," sold. (And once in a while a coyote kills a poodle.)
Vikky Alexander addresses this unnatural environment in an exhibition at State Gallery. With interiors represented by hard edges, bright colours and fake animal patterns these homes are set amidst waterfalls and trees. Multi-million dollar "dream homes," they are spacious and supposedly the height of lusted-after contemporary real estate. In "Magnus' Lair," a lone white fluffy dog sits atop an orange cushion on top of a hot pink something (sofa?) by the fireplace. The large windows reveal trees and a waterfall in close proximity. Aside from the garishness of the colours and decor, there is also a prison quality - the windows appear as bars disrupting/imprisoning nature, and the resident pampered pet, is a prisoner too, imprisoned in the palace, unnaturally remote from nature.
"Flawed Utopia" again features the jarring angles and colours of Alexander's other interiors. The high ceilings indicate its desirability - it's that big multi-million home once more, plunk right in the middle of the trees. Bright, spacious, empty - also "decorated" with kitschy animal prints, wood paneling and picture of a waterfall that combines to mock the real and misunderstood nature outside the window. Alexander questions the flawed utopias that we are being sold, that nature is carved up to build.
Kevin Schmidt's "Fog" exhibition at the Presentation House Gallery also explores the world of unnatural landscapes. Again, it is a local unreal landscape - the trees are immediately recognizable as BC flora, but it is strangely lit up for a nighttime scene. The scene is actually lit up artificially, as if for filming, and the fog is not natural either - it's fake fog from a fog machine. BC is sometimes referred to as Hollywood North because of the numerous bad Hollywood movies filmed here; Schmidt has once again transformed the local scenery into a set. Further, the exhibition is set up so the photographs are projected onto the wall in a darkened room, which not only heightens the eerie beauty of the photographs; it also creates the darkened atmosphere of a theatre.
Both artists seek to alert us about manipulated nature while siding with the real. Vikky Alexander's harsh incongruities ask what society is doing when it values a crass capitalism that will mow down nature as it pretends to admire it. Kevin Schmidt creates an otherworldly fake landscape that not only dazzles - it reminds us that the "special effects" are already present in nature.
Vikky Alexander - Nov. 12 - Dec. 4, 2004 - State Gallery, 1564 West 6th Avenue, Vancouver
Kevin Schmidt - Nov. 5 - Dec. 19, 2004 - Presentation House Gallery, 333 Chesterfield Ave., North Vancouver