Introduction

The Marion Scott Gallery is pleased to present a special window exhibition featuring new work by Vancouver artist Andrew Owen. This unique street-front installation comprises one large-scale work, entitled Brilliant Cut, along with two smaller related works. All three pieces belong to the artist's ongoing Excavations series.

In keeping with Owen's desire to limit the distortion that arises through any act of artistic interpretation, the works in the Excavation series are created through a careful process of subtraction. He begins by removing old sections of street hoardings whose surfaces have been covered with layers of promotional posters and announcements. Using these as found material, Owen painstakingly cuts through their papered surfaces, varying the depth and stripping away the accumulated matter according to a predetermined design. The procedure results in colourful patterned images that manage to preserve the texture and intrinsic beauty of their original environment.

In order to create the exhibition's principal work, Owen followed the geometry of a diamond that has been cut using the "brilliant cut" style, so named for its ability to refract the maximum light possible. The resulting circular composition is almost kaleidoscopic in effect. Although Brilliant Cut is made from "low" and impermanent materials (ephemeral posters), the composition itself is based on "high" and permanent objects (a diamond), a contradiction that transforms Owen's work into a play on the dichotomy between high and low, precious and marginal.

The two smaller works in the exhibition are preparatory works, one the prototype for Brilliant Cut, the other a maquette for another larger composition. Striking creations in their own right, they also allow viewers the opportunity to better understand Owen’s singular working process.

The exhibition is complemented by two outdoor installations featuring two major works from the artist’s parallel series of photo-cubic portraits. These are both located in front of the Cambie Annex on Cordova Street, just a short walk from MSG.