re(patterning) emerges from a place of re-imagining and unmaking through close looking and repetition in material practices. Val Loewen and Amanda Wood use this ongoing collaborative exploration to obscure and reveal experiences of otherness that can develop when self identifying within a normative culture. Considering the power of an illegible text, the work is intuitive, working to consider new ways of unknowing that makes space for divergence.

Repeated actions – breaking, revealing, glitching, and rearranging – are at the core of an attempt to uncover an imagined sensory language that moves beyond the visual to navigate experiences words fail to describe. Representational images and mundane objects are abstracted into sound, texture, and pattern that engage with concepts of coded language and imagined narratives.

re(patterning) is a continual process of unlearning perceptions of value and reframing connections to social and cultural environments.

MEDIUM(S)

serigraph and screen printing on paper and leather

ARTIST BIOS

Val Loewen (she/her/hers) is an artist practising on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱w.7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. Her practice is based primarily in print media and intersects with other material based methodologies through which she investigates ideas of transformational narratives and visual histories.

She works collaboratively with artists and community members to facilitate the exploration of material based artistic practices and expand the notion of print media within a contemporary arts context. She has practiced as an artist and culture worker in Vancouver since 2013 and currently works out of Malaspina Printmakers Society. She is grateful for the support of arts and culture organizations that have provided opportunities to explore the collaborative notion in her practice including: the Klondike Institute for Arts and Culture, BC Arts Council, and the Canada Arts Council.

Her work has been exhibited in Canada, the United States, and Japan and is currently held in national and international collections. She received her BFA from NSCAD University in 2012.

Amanda Wood (she/her/hers) is an interdisciplinary artist based on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱w.7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations (Vancouver, BC). Working across alternative photography, printmaking, and hand weaving, her materially grounded practice centers on repetition and tactile experience. Her work explores abstraction, perception, and the transformation of digital data into sensory experiences. Amanda holds a BA from Simon Fraser University, a Diploma in Textile Arts from Capilano University and has exhibited across Canada. She works out of Malaspina Printmakers Society and her own weaving studio and is particularly interested in systems of translation—how meaning shifts across materials and contexts.