Wunder Worry


Dates: October 29 to November 27, 2010

Artists: Troi Donnelly (Victoria), Suzanne Franks (Calgary) and Kevin Yates (Toronto)

Curators: Megan Dickie and Hailey Finnegan (Victoria) Installation

Opening: Friday, October 29, at 7:00 p.m.

Artist talks: Friday, October 29, at 7:00 p.m.

Wunder Worry catalogue with essay by Megan Dickie is available for purchase at Open Space

Suzanne Franks, Fortress, 2004

Wunder Worry was an exhibition that looked at anxiety and fear of the unknown from a place of curiosity. Worrying about the future can activate the imagination and at best create problem-solving results. The curators chose works for the exhibition that focussed on how pleasure can be found in moments of anticipation. Be it the desire for something new, or the anxiety over what we can’t control, it is the image that our mind conjures up that we become enamored with. To evoke this type of sensation, three Canadian artists were brought together with work that seduced the viewer with their sculptural representations of anxiety. Through their skilled use of material, scale and repetition the artists enticed us into their own unique world and allowed us to see uncertainty as desirable. 

Wunder Worry was developed by Victoria-based curators Megan Dickie and Hailey Finnegan as a project stemming from the Open Space Interdisciplinary Programming Committee. Dickie and Finnegan saw an opportunity to mount an exhibition that would hold the medium of sculpture up to the light of contemporary investigation into conditions of anxiety and process in a contemporary, media saturated world. The works by Donnelly, Franks and Yates provided an insightful discussion for the Victoria audience of different ways that artists deal with materiality as a medium itself. The exhibition also allowed for Donnelly, a local emerging artist to exhibit along-side Franks and Yates, whom both have strong exhibition experience and generosity as artists.

Troi Donnelly presented over thirty small objects that question how we are lured into wanting consumer goods. Employing many of the marketing strategies of mass produced gadgets, Donnelly’s sculptures make us desire the superfluous through material, colour, and plasticity. The objects include representations of nature, devices and one syllable words that are guttural reactions to cheap objects.

Troi Donnelley, Fir Cone #1, Detail, 2010

Suzanne Franks presented large scale sculptures that represent anxiety over the awesome tasks of parenthood. Her sculptures exist as a type of impossible survival gear for mother and son; striving to protect but failing through material and utility. Franks’ employs obsessive methods to create her sculptures resulting in manifestations of multiples that evoke excitement and unease.

Suzanne Franks, Life Preserver, 2007

Kevin Yates’ sculptures are reminiscent of media images from disasters and crime scenes. Using the strategy of miniaturization, Yates seduces the viewer into discovering flooded streets, and the isolated traces of human presence. Chilling and beautiful at the same time Yates’ sculptures expose one of our greatest fears; loss of shelter.

Kevin Yates, 2009