01 Nov – 15 Dec 2024
VIVIANEART. Calgary AB

VIVIANEART is pleased to present, Approval Stage, an exhibition of new works by Alberta artist Kyle Beal. Continuing his preoccupation with mirrors and the stage where he uses these forms to build upon ideas of authenticity and individuality, performing and thinning space between digital and physical realities. The tension of demanded by social networks to be both content creator and consumer, bleeds into the ‘real’ world that is obscured and made more complex by algorithm suggestions. Some things are easy to spot such as selfies in the museum, but also in the more subtle flattening of experience and choice- Online retailers and global shipping routes. This exhibition consists of new work ongoing series of mirrors. Each is 30” x 24”, a format that is portrait size, uniform in a way that echoes the endless scroll of content compressed to suit the screen. The process of ‘verre eglomise’, a process of adhering precious metal to glass, is part of a technological lineage combining metal and glass that extends to today’s backlit screens. With text embedded into the silver backing, there is a nod to the meme format, and yet viewers cannot help but see themselves in the text, blurring the space between what is in front, what is behind, what is surface and object. Often photographed, but as objects themselves resistant to photographic representation.

Paired with these works he has chosen to revisit the stage curtain as a subject for a series of large scale drawings. Building upon his series ‘Danger Fields’ a series from 2010, these new works explore the final moment on stage. A curtain backdrop, with confetti dropping, there is a space where the performer is caught between their character and themselves, and where the audience is caught between receiving entertainment and demonstrating a signal of approval back to the stage. The end of the grand finale, a magical moment, often joyous, sometimes performative (a rote standing ovation for example), but occasionally ecstatic in a profound individual way within the communal experience. The drawings operate in a similar space, somewhere between representation and abstraction, chance and intention; illusionary depth and flatness. Object to gaze upon, or background to a selfie. A complimentary series of smaller drawings, also of stages rendered more simply in graphite, offer a more intimate view. One filled with evidence of the hand, and little interventions that disrupt and deconstruct the picture.

Overall the works seek to celebrate and reaffirm our existence while keeping an critical eye to the nature of our evolving reality.