Eva Kubisheski and Katia Lubchenko: Vertical Gallery

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Eva Kubisheski, "985-149," 2016

mixed media

Meet Katia, Eva, and Emerald at the opening of the Vertical Gallery on Friday, May 5 from 4:30 to 7:00 pm. Everyone is welcome.  

Vertical Gallery is a longstanding annual Open Space exhibition of selected works from the graduating class of Camosun College’s Visual Arts Program.

Katia Lubchenko and Eva Kubisheski are two emerging artists whose use of natural media draws attention to the artistic processitself. These artists work with wood or clay materials to individually create displays using pattern, repetition, and composition that give the effect of a painting made from sculpture.

Life by Lubchenko was createdin response to a 2D art class assignment, yet her choice of found natural materials is borderline sculpture. The artist subtly enhances the inherent aesthetic of the natural materials in her work. Drying and varnishing the rounds brings out the tree ring pattern of the wood. Then, an active process of discarding and replenishing the live plants in the wood cracks every three days elicits the cyclical nature of life and death. 

985 - 149 by Eva Kubisheski consists of 836 glazed, raku, and pit-fired orbs in this ongoing project, the title of which is a play on numbers. The artist likens the arrangement of the multiples cascading from the ceiling, wall, and floor, to a sculpted version of an abstract painting. The sheer mass and scale of the project brings a conscious awareness to the artist’s production process—a discomforting repetition of hand making and re-making the same imperfect shape out of clay.

 "Katia Lubchenko and Eva Kubisheksi are two emerging artists whose artworks stood out to me because they both used natural materials and an artistic approach that elevated the nature of the material itself. I thought their nature-based media presented together would provide a refreshing contrast against the setting of the industrial gallery space. I also drew parallels between their formal use of rounds and spheres as well as repetition and multiples in their final compositions. I admired the outcome of mass and scale they achieved individually, because it demonstrated confidence in their creative forms by committing to reproducing them into pattern." - Vertical Gallery curator, Emerald Johnstone-Bedell 

Open Space (founded 1972) enacts a mandate “to support experimental artistic practices in all contemporary arts disciplines, acting as a laboratory for engaging art, artists, and communities.” As a non-profit artist-run centre Open Space presents work by artists of all disciplines, cultures and generations.