YAC Exhibits

Nicole Bauberger is a painter, writer and performer living in Whitehorse.

Two new exhibits on now at YAC

Drawn Together: embroidered portraits by Meshell Melvin and Doortraits: Intimate Pandemic Images by Alistair Maitland, two exhibitions on display right now at the Yukon Arts Centre Gallery, will be most meaningful for an audience of Yukoners. As you view the art, you will look for faces you recognize. I found this experience both timely and poignant as I walked through the gallery, a

Meshell Melvin uses a contour line approach to drawing in her embroidered portraits on canvas

mask obscuring my own features.

In both shows, the presence of the artist becomes part of the observation of the subject. The large photograph that greets the viewer coming into Alistair Maitland’s Doortraits: Intimate Pandemic Images features a smiling older couple, seen through a window. The reflection of trees and sky outside would have made them invisible, but for the shadowed shape cast on the window by the photographer’s silhouette, the arc of his finger over the shutter button.

Large-scale photographs high on the wall evoke the distance we have all been respecting and from which we have been viewing each other. Smaller images lower on the wall proliferate the people depicted and bring us, as viewers, in for a more intimate gesture of viewing.

Maitland began making these photographs in the first scary weeks of the pandemic when we were self-isolating, confronting the almost existential presence of all we did not know about COVID-19. He came to realize in that moment “how much of his own identity was wrapped up in his work highlighting the identities, adventures and achievements of others.” He found a way to do this anyway.

I found many feelings looking back at me from these photographs. Intimacy, family love, worried children, brave smiles, staginess and silliness, not only from human Yukon residents but their animal companions. A Northwest Coast-style mask, beaded moccasins–these photographs also bear witness to the household art that sustains us.

No tags give you names, but you will see people you know, even just from the grocery store. The choice to leave individuals unidentified shifts the intent of this portraiture, from the depiction of a particular individual, to a portrait of our community at a historical moment.

In the next gallery, I am delighted to see Drawn Together: embroidered portraits by Meshell. This project dates from 2003 and coincides with my own earliest days in the territory. I sat for Meshell on at least one occasion, “being seen without judgement and with kindness and regard,” as she writes in her artist statement.

PHOTOS: Nicole Bauberger Meshell Melvins embroidered portraits and Alistair Maitlands doortraits both evoke a sense of our community observed

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