This catalogue was published in 1990 by the Contemporary Art Gallery on the occasion of Spring Hurlbut’s exhibition at the Contemporary Art Gallery from November 17 – December 16, 1989. The publication contains an introduction on the artist’s work by curator Bill Jeffries and an essay by Christopher Dewdney.

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Spring Hurlbut

The Contemporary Art Gallery is pleased to present a new installation work by Toronto artist Spring Hurlbut. Hurlbut has exhibited extensively in eastern Canada and represented Canada in the 1987 São Paulo Biennale. Her in situ plaster works and tree column installations have been shown in both gallery and outdoor contexts, most recently in at Artcite in Windsor, Ontario and on the campus grounds at York University. 

For this, her first exhibition in Vancouver, Hurlbut will present *Sacrificial Column* which uses a twelve foot tree trunk with a capital incorporating rams horns, and plaster “egg and dart” moulding works installed high on the surrounding gallery walls. In these works Hurlbut investigates the origins of the relationship between natural form and the ordering principle of architecture, and by implication, the often problematic relationship between nature and mankind. The natural form of the tree trunk is disrupted, albeit harmoniously, by the crafted elements of capital and base and by its surrounding context of living trees or gallery walls. 


Essay: "Gestual Colonies," Christopher Dewdney

A close up view of the top of a capital column sculpture. Ram horns protrude from the sides of the column. 

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5 artworks on narrow metal shelves, decreasing in size from left to right. The works are various tree trunks and branches, with pieces added to their tops and bottoms, making them resemble columns.

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A gallery with multiple artworks on the walls. One wall has tree-trunk columns mounted on it, two walls show ornate white mouldings, and on the floor in the corner there is a column with rams horns.

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In a gallery, there are 2 ornate crown mouldings with partway up one wall, with small spaces in them where eggs rest. By another wall, there is a column made of a tree trunk with partial branches. 

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A closeup of an artwork in a gallery. It is an ornate column top, with rams horns attached to the bottom of each corner. The work is on a tall white plinth, making the pieces read as one large column.

Spring Hurlbut

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