PHOTO: COURTESY THE GALLERY
This Place
Painters explore the language of landscape
by bettina matzkuhn
Verna Vogel
Verna Vogel fills lively urban landscapes with human, vehicular and architectural interactions. Glass panes track the sky, flags and street signs flap in wind
funnelled through the buildings. Vogel literally builds her images from photo collages, painted canvas and found materials. They are sewn together by machine,
leaving delicate ridges and tracks. The construction is repeatedly painted over
until the eye can swing from balcony to stair railing to lamppost in a blur of
coloured windows and crosswalks. She has studied in both Vancouver and Kuala
Lumpur, and her work evokes the densely inhabited energy of cities. Our environments are designed, yet human use leaves its own zigzag seams. Viewers become
flâneurs: having a conversation here, a coffee there.
Kurbatoff Gallery
2435 Granville St. 604-736-5444
kurbatoffgallery.com
60
E SS E N T I A L VA N CO U V ER 20 16 / 1 7
Verna Vogel
Building Blocks
Mixed media on canvas
31” x 33”