2023
College Art Gallery 2, University of Saskatchewan
Curator, Leah Taylor
Photo credit: Carey Shaw

This exhibition brings together two Alberta-based artists, Anna Hawkins and Kyle Beal. Their respective artistic practices share conceptual considerations, questioning human relationships to screens and devices, 24/7 online existence, and the effect these have on contemporary culture. The artworks in Day for Night employ various mediums to point to the blurred lines between our public versus private lives.

Hawkins’ film Blue light Blue utilizes the visual language of horror films, casting the blue light emitted by smartphones, laptops, and tablets as a threat that has been unwittingly invited into our most intimate spaces. Beal’s large-scale installation Business Class is comprised of 24 “open” signs, exact to the everyday sign that can be found in the window of businesses. The meaning of the word points to the fact that we are increasingly and unthinkingly making our lives open.

Beal’s work and participation were generously supported in part by a grant from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.