Proximities: Artists' Statements & Their Works
Edited by W.F. Garrett-Petts & Rachel Nash

Writing about art / writing as art. Two English literature academics investigate artists' statements in terms of their relationships to art and artistic practice. Believing that artist's statements represent an intriguing example of "literatures of lesser diffusion", they explore the intersection of the visual and the verbal in works that rely heavily on language. The artists themselves work with their own earlier statements in ways that annotate their original works, creating new work in the process. Their visual and verbal contributions broaden our understanding of the contexts informing the production of each work. Participating artists include Donald Lawrence, Jan Peacock, Brenda Pelkey and Sandra Semchuk.

Kamloops Art Gallery (11/2005) 88 pp col. ill. 9 x 6 in hardcover 1-895497-63-9 $19.99 Can./U.S. (16 euros)

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Brenda Pelkey: Haunts
Ingrid Jenkner & Brenda Pelkey

Formerly a documentary photographer, the Saskatoon resident has turned to a subject matter that can only be called psychic landscape. Jenkner delves into the work and identifies two merging contradictions. Like the artist herself the works are open and the views large but at the same time they are rigorously controlled, technically pristine and purposely stylized. Pelkey describes her practice as "centered on subjective experience...informed but not constrained by readings in social psychology and feminist cultural geographies." Her colour plates (with three-page colour fold-outs) are simply entitled "Ocean", "Bush" or "Forest" and present a world that is recognizably Canadian yet decidedly personal.

Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery (2002) 36 pages, 7 col. ill. (with two foldouts) 9x9 in. 189451808x $15.00

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