Masterful prints displayed in FAB gallery’s ‘Water/Bodies’ and ‘On Being Without’
Heléna PlainWhat: Liz Ingram’s Water/Bodies and Meghan Pohold’s On Being Without
Where: FAB Gallery
When: November 21 – December 9
Liz Ingram and Meghan Pohlod, two University of Alberta artists, show off the full range of their skills in their latest exhibits.
Ingram, a U of A professor, is using her exhibition of Water/Bodies to celebrate and highlight various parts of her 40-year career. Through various printmaking media, Ingram explores both her life as well as the healing properties of water and its relationship to the human body.
Ingram’s art is both beautiful and haunting. She uses water as a backdrop for the human condition, encapsulating all manner of emotions in a variety of different water representations. As she moves from one piece of art to the next, Ingram presents both the freeing qualities of water as well as its suffocating qualities. One piece of her art may bring forth thoughts of the terrible, crushing, choking power of water and how quickly it can pull you into its depths whereas another piece of her work may bring forth images of gentle waves, rippling ponds and the spiritual cleansing often associated with water.
In her work, Ingram not only gives emotional weight to the human figures represented, she gives emotional weight to the water as well. She treats water as its own character, masterfully representing its raw, natural qualities whilst personifying its more human qualities, such as embracing and healing. Also, because Ingram’s exhibit showcases art from various periods of her life, viewers can witness the progression of her art and the varying artistic techniques present in each stage of her life. Viewers move through the more minimalistic pieces of Ingram’s early career and into the more watercolour-based works of her current career, all while revelling in the masterful strokes and techniques that Ingram uses to capture humans and their relationship to water.
Pohlod, on the other hand, is a master’s student at the university who is presenting her exhibit On Being Without as her final visual representation in her Master of Fine Arts in Printmaking. Her exhibit focuses on the impacts of abandonment and uses excerpts from various texts, as well as personal and non-personal photographs, to demonstrate this theme.
Pohold’s art is a wonderful mixture of various bits which create a collage that expertly draws your attention. Every photograph and every text has a purpose, and the more you look at these various pieces, the more you see and discover within her artwork. For example, what initially looks like a simple family photograph is eventually revealed, as you continue to gaze at it, to be the story of a forgotten child. This clever presentation of initially masking the represented abandonment is inspired and truly makes you realize how hidden the actual effects of abandonment are.
Therefore, Pohold’s exhibit not only touches upon the various aspects of abandonment, especially those of which are felt by a child, it touches upon the secrecy and solitude of mental wellness as well. It engages the viewer about difficult topics and presents them in a new, creative and accessible light. As well, the black and white colour scheme Pohold has chosen for her exhibit grants a timelessness to her art, giving it weight and meaning no matter what time or situation it is viewed in.
Both Ingram and Pohold’s exhibits showcase beautiful and deeply meaningful pieces of art. Their full skill is on display in the variety of techniques and art pieces that they have put together, with Ingram’s masterful strokes and Pohold’s budding promise on full display. If you enjoy art, or beauty or thought-provoking material, or all of the above, the artwork of Ingram and Pohold are definitely both worth checking out.
