The Vancouver Art Gallery has announced the 40 participating artists in its new triennial Vancouver Special. The exhibition intends to offer a comprehensive survey of the city’s contemporary art scene and its shifts since the 2010 Winter Olympics. The inaugural edition, “Ambivalent Pleasures,” is co-curated by Daina Augaitis, Vancouver Art Gallery’s chief curator/associate director, and …

Colleen Heslin in Vancouver Special: Ambivalent Pleasures at the Vancouver Art Gallery Read More »

Colleen Heslin’s paintings resonate with the tension of material and gestural complexity. Successfully fusing thought and action, the work dismantles material hierarchy by providing equal space to art and craft. Considering formal abstraction and craft-based methods of mark making, Heslin’s work thoroughly explores colour, shape, and texture. Constructed out of hand-dyed and ink-stained fabric, the …

Colleen Heslin: Needles and Pins at the Esker Foundation, Calgary Read More »

There’s a push and pull in Colleen Heslin’s quilt-like paintings, a pull to examine the undulating dyes and the rolling seams that stitch together second-hand fabrics used as surface and support. Yet these same chromatic stains and opposing fabrics push you back to make sense of the illusory depth and the ambiguous but evocative compositions. …

Colleen Heslin in Galleries West Magazine Read More »