Heritage

Outdoor installation for Geopoetics exhibition at Stewart Hall Gallery in Pointe-Claire Quebec. Curated by Kasia Basta. June11 to October 15, 2017. HERITAGE is a new sculpture is made of laser cut wood that depicts a map of the rivers and lakes of Canada. During the day the 3 dimensional letters on the shores of Lac Saint-Louis proclaim that water is our heritage in Canada. Through these vein-like water currants from sea to sea, humans and plant life are sustained. At night, the context of water conservation fades into a subdued reading, where the map now back lit, offers a more …

Signs of Change 2016

Signs of Change 2016 represents over 10 years of outdoor installations of words made from ice, which melt in the landscape as a poetic gesture towards the ephemerality of all nature. Like headlines conjured in a dream, they also herald in the new Anthropocene epoch, alerting us to the impact of humans on the environment. Unlike the loaded headlines in today’s media, the anticipated melting of the word acknowledges the absence of the word as it relates to the land. They act more like questions than certainty. They ask: what is the true cost of this View, who owns this …

A Dressing the Future Exhibition

New Exhibition and Art Residency  “A Dressing the Future” Lycoming College Art Gallery Williamsport, Pennsylvania, USA September 11 to October 10, 2015 WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. – The Lycoming College Art Gallery will host Nicole Dextras’ “A-Dressing the Future” exhibit from Friday, Sept. 11 to Saturday, Oct. 10. A reception and gallery talk will be held and Sept. 25 at 25 W. Fourth Street, Williamsport from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. These events are free and open to the public. In addition to having Dextras’ exhibit on display in the Lycoming College Art Gallery, she will also be an artist-in-residence at Lycoming College from …

A Dressing the Future

A Dressing the Future is a new series which integrates my artwork into a magazine format. The first of this series is called Jardin Culture and the first issue is “HortiCulture”. The editorial format of a magazine allows me to present themes in my work that raise awareness about socio-political and environmental issues. This magazine is placed in a dystopian future and I have created pseudonyms for the various aspects of my work. Dexter Nicholson is the editor and contributors include: Jean-Xavier Destroches- photographer, Nicole Vivian D’Extras- fashion designer and Élocin Sartxed-  sculptor. In mr. Nicholson’s inaugural editorial Art and Dystopia Today he writes: …

Persephone and the Pomegrante

My latest Weedrobes garment is a fruit inspired two piece ensemble with a jacket made from pomegranate peels, which was inspired by my experience with this material while in Germany working on a dress for Weleda. The sleeveless jacket also contains details made with dried mushrooms and fish maw around the collar and armholes. The boots are made with pomegranate fruit leather on a cork platform heel. The skirt is woven with wool and Asian red dates. The concept for this project is based on the Greek Persephone myth where a young woman is abducted by Haides and brought to …

Street Intervention in Paris

After the Mobile Garden Dress was in the Jardins Jardin garden show in Paris, we headed to the district of Montreuil to do a small street intervention where the dress left all of her plants on the fence of an abandoned lot. This site has an interesting history as it is occupied by the metal shell of an old factory attributed to Gustave Eiffel. This beautiful structure has stood empty for many years and until recently it was a squatters camp for the nomadic Roma people. They were evicted by the municipality in 2013, after which a fence was erected. …

Urban Botanicals

The Urban Botanicals Project is an outdoor installation consisting of botanical name identifiers for plants that are no longer growing in the area due to urbanization. The names of the original native plants are interspersed within the imported classical Chinese plants in the Dr Sun Yat-Sen Park. Cut from leaves and attached to bamboo stakes, they spell out the names of plants of the region, acknowledging the original landscape that the downtown east side and the city of Vancouver were built upon. For example, the Coastal Western Hemlock Zone of Vancouver’s land surface was once “covered with some of the …

MGD @ Eco Art Fest

The Mobile Garden Dress, part of the Urban Foragers series, participated in the first Eco Art Fest in Toronto during the summer of 2014. This new outdoor festival situated at Todmorden Mills is presented by No 9 Contemporary Art and the Environment, an arts orga­ni­zation that uses art and design to bring awareness to envi­ron­mental concerns. It featured 8 public art installations hidden throughout the site, live music, homemade organic dishes, beer and wine. Plus Public Art tours, Watercolour Painting Workshops, Sustainable building workshops, and Clay Stein Making. The Mobile Garden Dress was on hand at all the events onsite and she …

Art And Ecology Now

Art And Ecology Now is a new book written by Andrew Brown and published by Thames and Hudson. My work is featured among 95 creators in a compendium of ecologically responsive work. Art and Ecology Now is the first in-depth exploration of the ways in which contemporary artists are confronting nature, the environment, climate change and ecology. As Brown argues in the introduction, “Once an area of interest for a relatively small group of people, art that addresses environmental issues has in the last five years become part of the artistic mainstream.” He adds that “there has been a growing tendency in contemporary art …

Objects of Desire in Ice

Upon returning from my winter art residency in Banff in February 2014, I was happy to discover that Vancouver was under a layer of snow. This is unusual for this temperate climate and I am one of the few who relish in this rare occurrence. It meant that i could continue some of the ice work I had started in Banff and further develop the idea of covering objects that represent our desire for success and commercial goods under layers of ice. These are much smaller in scale than the chandelier in Banff but i had so much fun in …

Banff Winterjourney Art Residency

The Winterjourney art residency was held in at the Banff Centre for the Arts, in Banff AB from January 13 to February 21, 2014 and led by visiting artist Andreas Siqueland from Oslo. This residency permitted me to further my exploration of ice as a medium. I was happy to meet fellow artist Del Hiller who was also experimenting with making icicles and who graciously lent me some of his equipment to play with. It was also a time for me to try my hand at video, which i discovered i love as much a photography. It will be a …

Queens, meet the characters

Queens in the Desert series, Meet the Characters: Dame Dracaena La Puente, heiress to the great Shelly oil conglomerates is still seeking paydirt with her fashion savvy. Oblivious to the environmental repercussions of her family’s over one hundred year legacy of natural resources exploitation, she still dresses to the nines to impress. Even though the oil wells dried out years ago, her privileged LA upbringing entitles her to the finest luxuries. She favors the exotic pedigree of the Dracaena Draco leaf, often called Dragon’s Blood, a red resin extruded from the plant, which was used in ancient times as varnish, …