Sandra Meigs

Sandra Meigs is an artist who has been exhibiting nationally since 1974. Primarily identified with Toronto where most of her work has been exhibited and discussed, she has lived in Victoria since 1993 where she teaches at the University of Victoria. *Dummies* is her first solo exhibition on the West Coast.

*Dummies* is a series of paintings derived from loosely assembled eleven figure­ models that Meigs has constructed from found materials such as bubblewrap, towels, plastic, pillows and scrap wood. She has used these "figure-models" as a source for portraits in which the face emerges like a phantom within a ground of pure material and creates a perceptual effect that fluctuates back and forth between image and medium. As the intricate surfaces of the paintings are at times like skin with erupting wounds, they verge on the repulsive and ugly. At the same time, their ambiguity and resistance to be anchored in the representational or the abstract makes them fascinating, even beautiful objects. Meigs likens their haunting effect to an insistent mental image or memory that never becomes clear.

Sandra Meigs has exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario; the Power Plant, Toronto; Edmonton Art Gallery; Trepanier Gallery, Calgary; Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto; Galerie Chantal Boulanger, Montreal; Saidye Bronfman Centre, Montreal; and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.


Essay: “Sandra Meigs: Dummies,” Barbara Fischer

A closeup of a painting on a white wall, with a small white light extending from the wall, pointing to the painting. The work is mostly pale blue, with small blobs of colourful paint lightly blended. 

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Six visible paintings on the walls in the corner of a gallery. The paintings are colourful and vary in size. Three of them have bright lights attached just underneath them, creating bright spots. 

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A closeup of a small, square painting. The painting is abstract and very colourful, with some large blobs of paint near the centre. Below, a small light mounted on the wall shines on the painting.

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A closeup of a small abstract painting with a small light pointed at it from below. The painting is mostly blue and white with a thin yellow line and a dark red line along the left and right side. 

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Two paintings on a wall which are colourful abstractions, each with something like a figure at its centre. The left there are dark patterned forms resembling limbs on a colourful spotted background.

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Dummies

This exhibition, curated by Allyson Clay, offers an opportunity for the Vancouver audience to see a group show of multimedia and installation work by Katherine Knight of Vancouver, Sandra	Meigs of Toronto, and Colette Urban of Victoria. Although the work of each of these artists is	unique and different, they share a common approach to art-making, drawing from a wide range of media, and designing their works for specific sites.

Katherine Knight is showing a sculptural installation called *Marguerite* incorporating a continuous audio tape which projects the artist's voice reading a long poem, of the same name, written in 1981. This work is based on the true life story of Canada’s first uncloistered nun, Marguerite Bourgeouys, who, writes Knight, "attempts much, accomplishes some, dies, is largely forgotten and is now remembered."

Sandra Meigs work, *Angel Eyes (self-portrait)*, is a painting in polyester resin on six panels of four by eight foot plexiglass. These unsophisticated or cartoon-like images recall childhood experiences of the “real" equaling the “imaginary" and all existing on a giant movie-screen scale. This is also a humorous and critical look at everyday imagery represented as monumental or museum-size.

Colette Urban is showing costumes and other ingredients from two past performances, *I Feel Faint* and *Every Fly has a Shadow*, as well as presenting a new performance, *Blind Spot*, on opening night. "Colette Urban," Ian Wallace has written, "transfigures objects and experiences into ciphers for the recognition of both inspiration and emptiness, yet which also evoke the faint echo of truth, an evasive truth which seems so remote from the quotidian world of the streets."

In general, these three artists' sensual use of materials, their use of the elements of theatricality and kitsch, and their discreet sensibility for the ironic and comic, trigger another level of involvement in the critical discourses of feminism and modernism.

Guest curated by Allyson Clay


Essay: "Trigger," Allyson Clay

In the corner of a gallery, there is a long black dress on a mannequin, resting on pile of hay on the floor. Several cables are in the hay and on the wall, as well as a rock sculpture and a painting.

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Several artworks in the ball of a gallery. The works include a sculpture with concrete, tin foil, and a metal rake; a sculpture with a lightbulb on a pole; and a painting on the wall. 

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A closeup of a sculpture mounted on a wall. The sculpture is made of various readymade elements, including: cement bricks, tin foil, wires, side mirrors, metal tubes, and a rake. 

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Several artworks in the corner of a gallery. The works include a black dress standing on hay, a rock, a small painting, and a small, black wooden arch with text on the wall behind it.

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A closeup of an artwork. The work is a large plastic sheet with text that is on both the wall and the floor. There are two rusty curved pipes on the floor, and a folded silver panel on the wall.

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Multiple artworks visible in a gallery. Several colourful wall-to-ceiling paintings on glossy surfaces are visible on one side of the space. The rest of the space has various sculptures all around.

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A closeup of large glossy paintings suspended in front of a wall. The paintings are narrow and very tall They show different images of a mosquito, a cat, a chick, a human, a snail, and a horse.

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Katherine Knight, Sandra Meigs, Colette Urban

Trigger

This book was published in 1997 by the Contemporary Art Gallery on the occasion of the exhibition, Sandra Meigs: *Dummies* at the Contemporary Art Gallery, May 17 – June 28, 1997. This book contains an essay by Barbara Fischer.

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This catalogue was published in 1987 by the Contemporary Art Gallery on the occasion of the exhibition *Trigger* by Katherine Knight, Sandra Meigs and Colette Urban at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, from June 2 – 27, 1987. The publication contains an essay by curator Allyson Clay.

Sandra Meigs

Exhibitions

Publications & Editions