Meaghan Laaper | Reality from Fairy Tale: Review of the Owens Gallery Fairy Tails Exhibition
Fairy Tails, installation view, Owens Art Gallery, 10 January to 1 April 2020. From left to right: Meryl McMaster, On the Edge of This Immensity, 2019; Anna Torma, Permanent Danger 2, 2019; Janice Wright Cheney, The Lucivee in Captivity, 2020. Photo: Roger Smith
“Tales are rewritten or unwritten, travelers embark on uncertain journeys, danger lurks deep in the forest, a witch appears from nowhere, birds and beasts are spellbound, clothing is enchanted, and a shoe materializes, as if magically spun from gold.”
—“Fairy Tails Essay” by Anne Koval, Independent Curator and Professor of Art History at Mount Allison University
In a reality that feels straight out of fiction, countless numbers have embraced artistic practices to cope with the mental and physical strains of COVID-19. Within this societal upheaval comes an overwhelming need for escapism, perhaps into the realm of fairy tales?
Diana Thorneycroft, Herd-girl (dysfunctional fireman), 2015, digital photograph, courtesy of the Artist
Presented at the Owens Gallery at Mount Allison University, the exhibition Fairy Tails was installed and to be exhibited from January 10th to April 1st. Though closed due to COVID-19, the exhibition can still be enjoyed from afar through an audio walkthrough where viewers become acutely aware that this is no Disney or Grimm brother’s retelling.
Laura Vickerson, Softly, 2019, antique child’s dress and booties, wool fleece and felt, dried bouquet of lily of the valley, cast beeswax dolls hands, found branch, drawing. Installation shot, Fairy Tails, Owens Art Gallery, 10 January to 1 April 2020. Photo: Roger Smith
Exhibiting works from Aganetha Dyck, Meryl McMaster, Sylvia Ptak, Vicky Sabourin, Diana Thorneycroft, Anna Torma, Janice Wright Cheney, as well as poetry by Laura Vickerson and a film by Amalie Atkins, curator Anne Koval’s Fairy Tails exhibition places familiar stories and motifs in the context of the modern world. Highlighting the role of the animal in storytelling, each piece comes with its own sense of agency and shows how fairy tales are still relevant to this day.
Janice Wright Cheney, The Lucivee in Captivity (detail), 2020, velvet, found fur, taxidermy form, embroidery on velvet, India ink on cotton, digital print on linen. Installation shot, Fairy Tails, Owens Art Gallery, 10 January to 1 April 2020. Photo: Jeff Crawford
Not surprisingly, Janice Wright Cheney’s series Sighting the Lucivee has strong ecological overtones. In particular, her piece “The Lucivee in Captivity,” which mirrors the medieval tapestry The Unicorn in Captivity, begs the question: when do miraculous sightings, such as those of the now-extinct Eastern Cougar, turn into legends? Janice’s work lays bare the shocking reality of our world’s environmental crisis. Unlike the dragons and unicorns who by playing and laughing lost their seat on Noah’s Arch, we have only ourselves to blame for the losses and reductions in our wildlife.
Aganetha Dyck, Cinderella’s Other Shoe, c. 1995-1998, found shoe and beeswax; work completed by honeybees. Installation shot, Fairy Tails, Owens Art Gallery, 10 January to 1 April 2020. Photo: Roger Smith
Ecological awareness is carried through in Aganetha Dyck’s work “Cinderella’s Other Shoe.” Though Cinderella does not give credit to her cheese-loving helpers, Aganetha presents her work as a collaboration between herself and the bees. With populations of pollinators dying off, this work is particularly potent. The almost magical craftsmanship of the bees’ decorative honeycomb, atop Aganetha’s selected and hormone perfumed shoe, causes the viewer to look inward. Humans validate each other by speaking common languages. Having bees respond to us through our own communication methods (like art) may help us become aware of a bee’s true value.
Sylvia Ptak, Little Red Riding Hood: A Retelling (Books 1, 2 and 3), 2019, cotton gauze, acrylic paint, found book. Installation shot, Fairy Tails, Owens Art Gallery, 10 January to 1 April 2020. Photo: Roger Smith
Stepping away from ecology, both Sylvia Ptak and Anna Torma’s works question the very nature of narrative. Gauze threaded over the words of a found book, Sylvia’s Little Red Riding Hood: A Retelling reminds viewers of the fluidity of storytelling. Every person brings their own biases and experience to any body of written work. Sylvia takes a story as familiar as “Little Red Riding Hood” and obscures the text one would expect to find. In doing so, the text itself is a refusal of passive storytelling.
Anna Torma, Permanent Danger 2 (detail), 2019, hand embroidery and appliqué on linen. Photo: Roger Smith
In Anna’s series Permanent Danger, the concept of linear story is questioned. Her appliqués create a sea of imagery. Gazing at the fabric it seems to drip with narrative without any real clues on where to begin or end. It is a continual story with endless possibilities. In “Permanent Danger 3,” Anna continues to question the linear structure by using a found vintage quilt. In adding her own appliqué work to the quilt, she responds to the quilt’s original creator, communicating across generations.
Anna Torma, Permanent Danger 2, 2019, and Permanent Danger 3, 2019. Installation shot, Fairy Tails, Owens Art Gallery, 10 January to 1 April 2020. Photo: Roger Smith
The story of Fairy Tails continues and is full of amazing works that provoke awareness, like Laura Vickerson’s “Softly,” which defines the child as between worlds, or Meryl McMaster series As Immense as the Sky, which shows the true power of revisited story in strengthening identity. Though no two artists are alike in their modern representation of storytelling, each piece demands active participation. Instead of escaping into the realm of make-believe, Fairy Tails asks viewers to reexamine reality. Perhaps, with the current disruption of societal norms, now is the perfect time to rethink the familiar and question values that have gone unchallenged.
A recent graduate, Meaghan completed her Bachelor of Arts in English and Creative Writing at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton. Having also completed UNB’s Certificate in Publishing, Meaghan began her writing journey as a publicity and editorial intern for Goose Lane Editions before taking a work placement at CreatedHere/NBCCD.