Artist, 2004
Location: Stanley Milner Library (interior, past the customer service desk and turn left)
Brenda Malkinson’s colourful and multilayered works rarely show the complete structure. Her conceptual wood block prints and glass convey a poetic and often transcendent language. Malkinson’s pieces directly respond to her surrounding environment and use everyday encounters as a starting point – often these take on forms that would go unnoticed in their original context. Commissioned for the library, this work obscures the word “Artist”.
Malkinson’s labour-intensive processes are inspired by the essence of Barnett Newman’s 1948 essay The Sublime is Now. By building on the expressive power of color, multilayered images arise in which the fragility and instability of our seemingly certain reality is questioned. She amplifies the spectator’s astonishment by creating compositions that generate tranquil poetic images that leave traces and balances on the edge of recognition and alienation.
Biography: Brenda Malkinson is a multidisciplinary artist who has maintained a full-time art practice since 1977. She graduated from The Alberta College of Art and Design, studied theatre and costume design at Central School of Art, London, England, and is a self-taught stained glass artist. She has received international recognition for pioneering stained glass techniques and design. Since Malkinson’s first one-person exhibit in Edmonton in 1978, she has had numerous solo and group shows, been awarded major commissions, and has been invited to participate in major exhibitions including the Art Gallery of Alberta, Massey Foundation, University of Alberta, Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, Canadian Embassy, Tokyo, and most recently as an artist-in-residence in Vallauris, France.
Source: Brenda Malkinson
Photo Credit: Ester Malzahn