Gallery Vertigo is hosting two sculptural exhibitions in February: Flawless by senior UBC Okanagan visual arts students, and The Mandroid Universe by Vernon musician Manfred Harter.
Flawless showcases sculptures and installations by seven young Okanagan-based artists working with objects.
Featured are 3D reflections on craft, time and labour, vernacularism, and gender representation.
“Expect playful, committed and startling points of view, using unusual materials simply and refreshingly combined,” said Harold Rhenisch, Gallery Vertigo’s webmaster.
UBC professor Samuel Roy-Bois describes the show as a survey of the thoughts and interests of this very promising new generation of artists.
“They make objects to renegotiate their relationships with their environments, and to share with others a complex and open-ended perception of the world,” he said.
Mandroids are finely detailed and humorous miniatures that Harter started making two years ago out of chicken and other poultry bones.
What started as whimsy has led to a series of supernatural Mandroid stories, 111 sculptures, and a video on YouTube that is about Harter’s physically challenged superheroes in a changing world.
Harter has made many characters, everything from samurai swordsmen to skiers to a rock band.
“I want to think outside the universe,” he said.
“There’s a Mandroid for each of us to connect with,” added Gallery Vertigo director Michelle Mitchell.
The Mandroid Universe will be exhibited on Gallery Vertigo’s Featured Members’ Wall from Saturday, Feb. 8 to Feb. 28.
Flawless opens Wednesday, Feb. 12. The artists will be present in the gallery to discuss their work at an opening reception Feb. 13 from 7 to 9 p.m. Refreshments will be served. The exhibition continues in the main gallery until March 7.
Both are open for viewing Tuesday through Saturday from noon to 4 p.m., at Vertigo, located at 3001-31st St., upstairs above Krause Jewelers. Admission is by donation.
