ALISON NORLEN: "LUNA," January 25 to March 10, 2013, Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon

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"Alison Norlen"

Alison Norlen.

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"Alison Norlen"

Alison Norlen.

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"Luna"

Alison Norlen, "Luna," 2012, steel, installation view.

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"Luna"

Alison Norlen, "Luna," 2012, steel, installation view.

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"Luna"

Alison Norlen, "Luna," 2012, steel, installation view.

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ALISON NORLEN: LUNA

January 25 to March 10, Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon

By Margaret Bessai

Things that were, could be and are yet to be shimmer like architectural blueprints drawn in silverpoint. Alison Norlen’s wire sculptures of bridges, boardwalks, expo pavilions and amusement-park rides form a maze of shifting scale that bends time and space. Although based on real places, they are compressed into a dream space she describes as “plausible, but not necessarily tangible.” The exhibition’s title refers to Luna Park, a Coney Island amusement venue opened by Frederick Ingersoll in 1903. Although it burned in 1944, it has since been resurrected and redeveloped. Norlen is fascinated by the island’s architectural palimpsests and recalls crumbling architecture peeking through rebuilt urban environments. “The parachute drop at Coney, a favourite structure of mine, is a backdrop for a baseball diamond,” she says. “The Thunderbolt roller coaster that later became condemned and fenced off is overgrown with ivy. Incredible – the wooden manmade sculpture taken over by nature, turned into a kind of topiary.”

Norlen, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, trained as a painter. But her work has taken many forms: dioramas, sculptural paintings, immersive drawings and even an autobiographical mini-golf installation. She first used wire sculpture to make maquettes to help her understand the structures she was drawing. But in recent years, her interest has shifted from drawing to sculpture, from surface to skeleton. Yet scale and visceral effects remain important. Last summer, for example, she created Beacon, a 30-foot aluminum armature that references Toronto’s lighthouse architecture from the 1800s.

Norlen built the LUNA sculptures, which resemble fantastical birdcages, over the last two years using stainless-steel wire and a specialized jewelry welder. Her ephemeral models evoke ghostly visions of Britain’s Brighton Pier, burned and tilting into the sea, Saskatoon’s decommissioned Victoria Bridge, and the Dunmore Pineapple, a Scottish folly built by the Earl of Dunmore in 1761. Some pieces are based on rides from historic Coney Island, including the spinning disc of the Steeplechase and the Loop the Loop roller coaster.

Norlen’s process is rooted in research conducted in libraries and archives and during site visits. Cultural critic Robert Enright has famously described her as “a sojourner in the theme parks, mega-malls and festivals of the Americas.” And, indeed, Norlen has taken in everything from Mexico’s Day of the Dead and the Rio Carnival to monster-truck rallies. She’s also a film buff and enjoys work by classic directors such as Fassbinder and Fellini as well as pop-culture horror flicks. Childhood experiences also inform Norlen’s work. She speaks of growing up in a cabin near Kenora, Ont., decorated with a bearskin rug, a moose antler table and a zebra couch. “Fishnets hung on the ceiling with starfish and shells we found at the beach.” Norlen went on to complete a BFA at the University of Manitoba and won a graduate scholarship to Yale, graduating in 1989 with her MFA. Since then, she has exhibited widely across Canada and internationally. Her work is included in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada.

ABOVE AND bottom: Luna, 2012,

steel, installation view

Below: Alison Norlen