Art Review: Go Sit On The Art
Kerri-Lynn Reeves Holding / Tenderness at Harcourt House Artist Run Centre
Not a lot of art in the gallery is designed with children in mind. The gallery space is usually presented as a space where you can look, but don’t touch, where everything is precious and fragile. Kerri-Lynn Reeves subverts that perception in her exhibition, Holding / Tenderness, up at Harcourt House Artist Run Centre until November 26, 2022.
Holding / Tenderness is a network or body of works created during Reeves’ year-long position as Artist In Residence at Harcourt House from November 2021-2022. This was the first studio space she’s had to herself since graduating from her MFA in 2016. In this Studio Of Her Own, Reeves created work while thinking about slow production, repetitive production, rituals, and holding as an act of supporting. She created ceramics, soft sculptures, quilted banners, screenprints, and tufted rugs, all of which reference domestic space, and work in tandem as a network. The exhibition is full of abstract geometric shapes (lots of circles!) and a limited colour palette where each colour represents an immediate family member in Reeves’ new family.
Kerri-Lynn Reeves obtained her BFA from the University of Manitoba and completed her MFA Studio Arts in Fibres and Material Practices at Concordia University in 2016. She is now an Assistant Professor at MacEwan University. Her family dynamic changed in a big way over the last couple of years and she has a new life partner, two biological kids, and two step-kids. As a result of these major shifts, Reeves was thinking a lot about how she navigates her own emotional well-being with the emotional labour of being a parent and a mentor. Domestic life, work life, and artistic life are all quite demanding, and Reeves turned to artmaking as a way to process them.
Reeves is a multidisciplinary artist and the exhibition explores several mediums. She tends to work in terms of series separated by mediums. A New We is a series of quilted banners. A study on how to be whole… is a series of screenprints. There are three sets of soft sculptures on “how to soften for resilience,” as the artist says. And finally, A study for holding… is a series of ceramic sculptures. Two of the soft sculptures also have block print patterns on them, and all the sculptures are hand-sewn.
When talking about the work, Reeves talks about how different bodies occupy space differently and require different kinds of support. She talks about making work for different heights and abilities, different reactions to the space, and the central thought of how healing from trauma requires one to feel safe. The soft sculptures can be used to hold or to support bodies, while the screenprints and ceramics can be used to encourage contemplation. All of the works show traces of the artists’ process and reference the domestic sphere to some degree. Trauma-informed care is all about listening and providing support without judgement, and this seems to be the heart of Reeves’ work. She doesn’t mention art therapy, but she’s certainly thinking along the lines of how to use art as therapy.
I really love how the central quilted banner pattern lined up so well with the paint behind it, and then the tables holding the ceramics echo the same shapes. It’s a very deliberate composition that takes up an impressive amount of space.
Initially, I wasn’t certain why the ceramic pieces were so central to the exhibition. The statement and the other pieces talked so much about softness and domesticity that I wasn’t sure why the central installation was two ankle-high half-circle tables loaded with ceramic vases. They certainly don’t invite engagement - they’re fragile and packed tightly together. But then I began to think of A study for holding… as a reference to Reeves’ previous work, The Dinner Party Series. The title of that series references an installation by artist Judy Chicago, but the series spoke more of networks and interconnection. A study for holding may re-reference Chicago’s aesthetic of cookware on a long banquet table.
The fleshy colours selected for Reeves’ ceramics speak quite bluntly to the (female) body as a vessel, which is perhaps another pun for feminist study. Process-wise, ceramics are a new material for Reeves, which reminded me of how many artists I know had focused on learning new material during the pandemic. Reeves pointed out that while throwing clay on a wheel, the clay wants to spin outward. The artist has to hold their hands in such a way that it constrains the clay without collapsing it. If the process of creating the pieces informs the meaning of the work, then we know A study for holding… is about cycles, shaping, spheres, holding, and circles. Those elements repeat across the rest of the exhibition.
On the other hand, it’s clear how the screenprints, soft sculptures, and quilts go together. They use a common language of very abstract geometric shapes (lots of circles!) and a limited colour palette. While the screenprints are the most rigid in terms of design, the other geometric shapes are literally softened as they transition from design into textiles. Visitors can sit on any of the three sets of soft chair-like sculptures. The sculpture spaces are marked with tufted rugs. Viewers can interact with the sculptures however they wish, by moving them around or sitting on different pieces. Reeves told me that at one point there were kids engaged in a pillow fight with the pillow installation! Pillow fights in the gallery?? Amazing!
For myself, the pillows were my favourite to recline on. The block printing is a little rough to the touch, but the pillows are lumpy and inviting! The quilted banners are roughly twin-bed size, double-sided, and displayed away from the wall, allowing visitors to walk around and behind them as if in a maze. The shapes on both sides are layers of circles in different sizes. One side is pink/flesh tone, and the other side is white with two large circles (pink and blue) and four small circles in the family colours. Like with Ligtvoet’s paintings, the recurring colours and their respective sizes become characters to look for throughout the exhibition.
The pillows are especially inviting in terms of engagement. The other two soft sculptures are comfortable to sit on, but I found myself reluctant to move them around or to play with them. I’m not sure if that was an effect of the ceramic pieces taking up so much space - the continual reminder that these are all art pieces, and This Is A Gallery.
Reeves’ installation reminds me of what I really love about installation work. Installations are an opportunity to transform a space into an experience and to encourage a sense of play. By creating soft colourful sculptures and thinking inclusively about different bodies’ abilities, heights, and needs, Reeves encourages us all to step outside of our spheres for a little while, and enter a space of play where we can find both comfort and contemplation.
The exhibition is up until November 26th! Get thee to the gallery, and Go Sit On The Art!