COLIN LYONS (Edmonton)| FITZGERALD RIG
January 21-February 26, 2010
Exhibition opening Thursday, January 21
Artist Talk (with David Hoffos): 7pm in the KIAC Ballroom
Reception: 8 pm in the ODD Gallery
This installation of kinetic sculpture and prints, takes the rich industrial history of Petrolia, Ontario (the artist’s birthplace) as its starting point. Constructed in 1903, the Petrolia Rig remains the world’s largest oil rig in the world, but since 1972 has been barely able to produce enough oil necessary for its own operation. It now continues to work in the context Petrolia Discovery, an oil museum set amidst the town’s active oilfields.
Lyon’s project explores the physical remnants of deindustrialization of his hometown, finding creative resonance in themes of obsolescence, entropy and memorialization embodied by the outmoded splendour of the Fitzgerald system. Using print-making as his means to explore the social complexities and absurdities of ‘boomtown’ existence (a medium the artist says is half-way between industry and aesthetics), Lyons creates prints of the Rig’s refuse, while using the zinc etching plates to assemble a sprawling industrial world.
COLIN LYONS graduated with a Fine Art degree from Mt. Allison University in 2007, and is currently a Masters of Fine Art candidate at the University of Alberta. His work has been exhibited extensively throughout Canada.