Features
Not a Pretty Picture
Art student's ‘Landfill' exhibition uses waste objects to provoke discussion about society's attitudes towards consumerism
BY REBECCA KENDALL
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| Fine art master's student Nicolé Vogelzang is bringing life to waste items for her new show opening this month at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre. Photo by Martin Schwalbe |
After sorting through a pile of seemingly lifeless objects to find the perfect items to feature in her latest collection of portraits, artist Nicolé Vogelzang has her newest creations in the can.
“I looked at objects from my recycling bin, and I wanted them to be alive,” says the master's student in the School of Fine Art and Music, whose show “Landfill” runs June 23 to Oct. 7 at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre. “I thought about how this stuff is invisible to most people and wondered: ‘What if it was brought to life and given power and force?'”
“Landfill” is filled with characters created using rescued items like plastic disposable cups, tin cans and Styrofoam. The motive behind Vogelzang's work is to provoke discussion about society's attitudes towards consumerism and the value it places on the seemingly inanimate objects she brings to life on wood, panel or board in her paintings, which are reproduced from photographs that she composes and shoots herself.
“I've always believed that artwork is a site for imagination and contemplation, and it's an invitation to engage with possibility that otherwise wouldn't exist,” she says. “The work is obscure, if not totally weird.”
Her body of work, which has been growing over the past decade and has been included in close to 20 group shows in New York, Toronto, London and Newfoundland, is based on scenes constructed using simple items. While this upcoming show depicts things people waste, her first solo show used an item many people like to taste — gummy bears.
“My great-grandmother has been sending me gummy bears from Germany since I was a little girl,” says Vogelzang, who was born in Germany and lived in South Africa before moving to Canada at age four.
Her gummy bear portraits, which were mounted in a solo show in 2003, brought critical acclaim to the 28-year-old artist, who is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD).
“I wanted to do something different with my work,” she says, adding that she also appreciated the human-like characteristics and qualities of gummy bears and the way they reflect light and shadow. “They seem to have personality, and I wanted to give them voice.”
Despite similarities between the German and North American versions of the candy, Vogelzang says they are quite different products.
“The German ones taste better, they're harder and they have a different shape. The North American ones are gummier and fatter and are much harder to work with.”
The solo show ran at Toronto's Pari Nadimi Gallery and was reviewed by Gary Michael Dault of the Globe and Mail, who wrote an article titled “The Still Life of a Gummy Bear Has Its Appeal.”
After the show closed, Vogelzang was frequently contacted by people interested in having her create gummy bear works, and although it was fun at first, it started to become difficult, she says, adding that the pieces sold for anywhere from $600 to $2,000 apiece.
“I was being commissioned for work at a rate that outpaced my ability to produce them. I became known as the ‘gummy bear girl,' and I eventually got sick of gummy bears. It was becoming routine. Everyone I know was sending me items related to gummy bears and pictures people had taken of gummy bears, and I thought: ‘OK, I have to move on.'”
From the gummies, she moved on to common items like marbles, wooden clips and small toys, including the popular My Little Pony, to express her ideas and offer new challenges, she says.
Despite her evolving style, Vogelzang is most remembered for her gummy bear art. In April, a reporter from the Columbia News Service wrote of her work in a story about American artists who are now experimenting with the tasty medium. As a result, her name has appeared in press clippings in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maine and Ohio over the past two months.
This year, she was awarded the Shuebrook Graduate Scholarship from the College of Arts. She was also nominated for a Steam Whistle Art Award in the best emerging artist category in 2004 and received a Carol and Morton Rapp Foundation Award from OCAD in 1998.