Curated by Arin Fay
The Field Doll will be taking up residence at Touchstones during the late summer and fall of 2018 and will also be making an appearance at several iconic spaces throughout the city of Nelson, including the Big, Orange Bridge (BOB). Benning has exhibited the Field Doll both in Canada and the US by placing the work in the context of each specific place via photographs which is an essential part of the process and presentation. The work is an irreverent ode to place and change and the proportion of both to the viewer and their perspective. The doll is dropped into scenes, as if by the whim of a petulant child, and there is a whimsy and wackiness to this large scale installation piece which underlies the inherent sadness (and down-right creepiness) of the cast off doll in unexpected places.
Heather Benning
Heather Benning currently lives and works in rural Saskatchewan. She completed a bachelor of fine arts degree from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 2004, and a master of sculpture at Edinburgh College of Art in 2009. Between her degrees, Benning returned to Saskatchewan, where she completed several large-scale, site-specific installations. She has had numerous solo and group shows throughout Canada (Nova Scotia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Ontario) and abroad (United States, Spain, Germany, Austria, Scotland, England and France). Heather’s work has been reviewed in Canadian Art magazine, Sculpture magazine, Espace and Uppercase Magazine, Studio Magazine, The Nation Post, etc. Her Film, The Dollhouse, (documentation of the decommissioning of her site specific sculpture, Dollhouse) screened 23 film festivals in 16 countries, including the Vancouver International Film Festival, and Glasgow Short Film Festival.
Field Doll Photo Shoot
See Also
Supersizing Prairie Gothic: The Art of Heather Benning – Canadian Art