Brenda Draney: Medium of Exchange
Curated By: Arin Fay
Memory is vital to our understanding of our lives, yet flawed, misremembered and coloured with individual experience. Forgotten and confused details are what create the absence of content in Brenda Draney’s artistic style. The exhibition Medium of Exchange is a beautiful example of the illusory nature of Draney’s work, which will be on view at the Nelson Museum, Archives, & Gallery summer 2019.
Brenda Draney
Brenda Draney is Cree from Sawridge First Nation, Treaty 8, with a strong connection to Slave Lake. Her work is collected and shown across Canada including the National Gallery of Canada, the Embassy of Canada Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Alberta, the Sobey Collection, and the Shorefast Foundation. She shows in Banff, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and Ottawa. She won both the 2009 RBC Painting Competition and 2014’s Eldon and Anne Foote Visual Arts Prize in Edmonton and was short listed for the 2016 Sobey Art Award at the National Gallery of Canada.
Draney’s work visually represents the moment when vulnerability is exposed, while encouraging the viewer to reject the notion to dominate the void where horror, poignancy, or powerful moments exist. Draney encourages her viewers to face this void head on, but as an empath. Her work provides just enough information for viewers to place their own narrative within her typical imaginary spaces, encouraging an empathic approach to spatial voids.
