Red Deer artist, now living in New York, comes home for museum talk

Her sculptures transform objects from scientific, medical, military, and spiritual contexts into reliquary-like forms that symbolize broader belief systems and power structures, it goes on to say.

Speaking with rdnewsNOW over email, Cameron-Weir says that while her art doesn’t necessarily have a message, she does hope that even one student may find her exhibition to be motivating for their own burgeoning art career.

“Art is obviously a form of communication and communication can be precise without being explanatory. For me, making sculpture is a hands-on way of thinking, so I think what’s on display is a series of decisions, not a polished conclusion. I have authority over what I make, but not absolute authority over what it means. I identify with the audience in that respect because I’m also interpreting and responding to the work,” she wrote.

“When I was a student at AuArts (then ACAD), I remember seeing David Altmejd’s work and meeting him when he visited the school before he went on to represent Canada at the Venice Biennale in 2007. It helped me realize that being an artist was something I could actually do with my whole life, not just study or do as a job. If one student sees my show and has a similar realization or motivation, that would mean a lot to me.”

She also noted that the themes her art explores help her in asking the question, ‘Is the world as it seems?’

“Art is also a way of dealing with uncertainty. These aren’t just subjects I want to moralize about,” the Lindsay Thurber grad added.

“I can work with ideas I don’t necessarily agree with, without having to resolve every contradiction. I can think about what shapes perception. That includes questioning my own assumptions. I can be wrong, and I can change my mind.”

Cameron-Weir also attended Central Middle and Sylvan Lake’s C.P. Blakely Elementary, she shared.

Recent solo exhibitions of hers include Dressing for Windows (Exploded View) at SCAD Museum of Art (2022) and STAR CLUB REDEMPTION BOOTH at the Henry Art Gallery (2021). Her work has been featured in major group exhibitions including The Milk of Dreams at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022) and New Time: Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century at BAMPFA (2021).

Bookends, seen above, is Cameron-Weir’s first major solo exhibition in Canada. It can be seen through Nov. 21 at the AUArts campus in Calgary.

To help folks tour Bookends, the exhibitions team at Illingworth Kerr Gallery is offering FREE return fare to the exhibit on the Red Arrow. Rides can be requested by filling out this form.

You can reserve a spot for her talk here.

by Josh Hall

Red Deer artist, now living in New York, comes home for museum talk

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