August 6th-29th, 2015
Closing reception Saturday August 29th 2015, 7-9 pm

The history of collaboration and exchange between artists sharing studio space is rich and long-running, and one may easily include the two women at the helm of Graven Feather in that tradition. Pam Lobb and Erin Candela have been combining forces artistically on projects, such as the now-annual Graven Feather Letterpress Calendar, for over four years; in the many prints and products the studio has released, a clear aesthetic has become evident, developing organically out of combined interests in subject matter and printmaking techniques.

About the Artists
Both artists, have continued to develop their own practices independently. While produced under the same roof, each practice is nonetheless clearly based on the strengths and interests particular to each; different mediums reflecting for example Lobb's technical roots in sculpture and printmaking, and Candela's early focus on drawing and painting. This August's exhibition, Trawling Tilling Tending, displays their work in tandem; art that, though clearly produced by discrete individuals, reflects shared threads of interest in memory and history, the roots of identity, and the mutable face of Canadian landscape.

Pam Lobb: The installation and sculptural print pieces featured in the gallery are a continuation of the paper and textile sculptures that Pam Lobb has been developing over the past 5 years. Hand printing etchings, lithographs, and monoprints onto fine Japanese papers, she then layers and moulds them together with found textiles from her home region of Southern Ontario.
As part of the large-scale installation there are living flowers drawn through the holes of the lacework. Each stem has a water container that must be refilled throughout the duration of the show. In Lobb's process, the act of tending to the piece can be seen in alignment with the revisiting of stories and past traditions. There is the opportunity to replace, exclude and care for the parts that are meaningful or unfinished. The minute attentions and delicacy of Lobb's work remind us of the lost elements of a fading cultural heritage, and her work builds from a long observation of a region under stress and a hopeful view of its transformation.

Erin Candela: With explorations in the use of watercolour and pencil crayon, this latest body of work returns to familiar ground amongst themes of home and reconstructed memory. Featuring imagined islands, botanical masses and mountains from her childhood, the bulk of the imagery was completed during a recent trip to her hometown in Northern British Columbia. There Candela was inspired by old photographs, a thriving natural environment, and the merging of existing mental iconography with a solid, present, reality. These mixed-media drawings operate best as an accumulation of visual motifs, joined by shifting streams of colour, feeling and personal vision; a floating collection that travels along the wall mixing images from actual scenes with reconstituted elements.

More images available at www.pamlobb.com & www.erincandela.ca