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| Svava Juliusson (foreground) and Rebecca Roberts (painting); Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2014 |
Last September I saw the Big in Nova Scotia exhibition at the Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery near Halifax. The show, curated by Ingrid Jenkner, ran from August 23 to September 28, 2014 and featured the work of nine artists. Painting, sculpture, and textile-based work made within a 33 year time-span (1980 to 2013) were included and, as the title suggests, all the artworks in this exhibition were BIG.
One highlight was seeing Rebecca Roberts' sprawling oil on birch plywood painting Untitled in its entirety. It's 74.8 X 8 m (installed) and was painted in 2000. Roberts and I were at NSCAD at the same time and I remember seeing one section or a study for this painting in the Anna Leonowens Gallery. If I remember correctly, this is a self-portrait.
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| Rebecca Roberts Untitled detail; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2014 |
The painting is modular, and this was the first time that it had been exhibited in the MSVU Art Gallery in its entirety.
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| Rebecca Roberts Untitled detail; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2014 |
Roberts was born in Halifax in 1977 and now resides in Brooklyn, New York.
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| Rebecca Roberts Untitled detail; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2014 |
The painting sat in her mother's basement until 2013, when she donated it to the MSVU Art Gallery. I'm grateful that it is finally seeing the light of day.
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| Rebecca Roberts Untitled detail; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2014 |
The painting is a fractured narrative, it is one of intimacy and vulnerability.
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| Rebecca Roberts Untitled detail; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2014 |
Rebecca Roberts is the author of the quirky blog Manna from Brooklyn and set aside her paint brushes to be a wrangler of words.
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| Rebecca Roberts Untitled detail; Photo © Karen Thiessen, 2014 |
All the photos were taken with permission.
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