Bagatelles is the name of a rose garden at the Bois de Boulogne, Paris. In 2007, I spent 4 months there as a recipient of Paris Studios Grant from the Canada Council.The formal gardens of France, my rural home in Baie Verte, several representations of historical gardens found in books are the subject matter of this series.

The opening and closing pieces are composed with a gate-keeping monster, guarding the uncertain territory of imagined plants, animals, waters and lands, human -face animals and animal masks for humans, asking, WHO, MAY I ASK IS THE BEAST?

The hand painted silk objects heavily embroidered by hand, the tensions of stitches transferring its original 2D qualitiy into a silk relief.

Exhibition Venues and Dates: 2011 Sept. 16th to Nov. 6th, 2011, Owens Art Gallery (Sackville, NB).

Paper Doll takes as its point of departure a little known collection of hand-made paper dolls and doll clothes by the poet Sylvia Plath that reveal her early skills as a visual artist and designer. Although historically regarded as ephemera, the paper doll operates within the feminine narrative, embodying the interior worlds of fantasy and play. While largely operating within the domestic sphere of the home, important links can be made to popular culture, glamour and fashion with the production of movie star paper dolls from the 1950s onwards. The exhibition provides a space for the interplay between the Plath material and the work of seven contemporary artists.

The exhibition includes an early super-8 film Cindy Sherman (video), new work by Jeannie Thib, Cybèle Young, and Anna Torma, an installation piece by Ed Pien and part of a previous installation by Lynne Yamamoto.

Much of the work conceptualizes the interiority of child's play as a fantasy world remembered, recreated and transformed. The themes of childhood, the cutout and experiential perception are given new materiality and meaning by the artists in this exhibition.

Anne Koval, Curator