Halie Finney | Up in Smoke and Out to Dry
October 4 – December 28, 2019
Opening reception | Thursday, October 3 at 7pm
Artist Talk with Becca Taylor | Thursday, November 21 at 7pm
Up in Smoke and Out to Dry is an interactive installation by Halie Finney that explores the relationships between family, shared history and the surrounding environment. Using the clothesline as a metaphor for a physical connection to a place, Finney considers the importance of shared experience in maintaining a legacy of memory and community.
In this presentation of new work, Finney extends her drawing practice onto transparent plastic sheets, playfully allowing light to factor into the experience of the work with the help of flashlights. In the darkened space, drawings are projected into forms on the wall, animated by the light’s movement in a medley of text, silhouette and luminosity. By placing the role of animator in the viewer’s hands, Finney offers a glimpse into the landscape of her memory, shaped by the presence of lived experience and loss. These two ideas, symbolically linked to fresh air and smoke, carry their aromas throughout the space, with the low-glow of fire bleeding into wherever the light is directed. Up in Smoke and Out to Dry examines the artifacts of collective memory and by “resurrecting the clothesline”, Finney asserts the value of fresh air, when fire and smoke loom in the distance.
Halie Finney is an emerging Metis artist currently based in Edmonton, Alberta. She received her degree from the Alberta University of Art and Design in 2017 where she majored in drawing, she also graduated from MacEwan University in 2014 with a diploma in fine arts.
Born and raised in the Lesser Slave Lake region of Alberta, Finney holds a strong connection to the area. She understands her Metis heritage through memories told to her by generations of her family who still reside there and through the characteristics of her home's landscape and lifestyle. Finney has created a mythology of characters living in a simplified story-book version of her hometown. The band of characters play out non-linear, idiosyncratic narratives that are expressed through animations, costumes, drawings, paintings, performances and other objects.
