Connected Currents - Kelsey Stephenson

The Ottawa School of Art, Orleans Campus Gallery is proud to present Connected Currents, an exhibition by Kelsey Stephenson. Join us from May 16 to June 26, 2024, at the Ottawa School of Art’s Orleans Gallery located on the main floor of the Shenkman Arts Centre to see this immersive exhibition. We are pleased to have Kelsey Stephenson in the gallery for an artist talk and reception on Thursday, May 16, 2024 from 5:30 to p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Everyone is welcome!

Connected Currents focuses on Alberta’s watershed. Three interrelated works, Flux, Currents, and a collection of individual works on paper, surround the visitor, guiding their journey along disparate watersheds connecting them across space and time.

Flux is a collection of 27 silk panels, each three feet wide by nine feet across hung in the gallery. Stephenson’s photographs of iconic Alberta locations focus on the water that flows out of glaciers to feed the Athabasca, Bow and North Saskatchewan rivers. Currents, which evolved from Flux, examines human activity along these rivers. Stephenson’s 60-foot-long constructed landscape is comprised of hundreds of works that present sites of industry, history and agriculture, blended with seemingly wild spaces. These two spectacular installations connect places along the rivers separated by distance.

A series of individual works connects locations separated by time. Archival photographs and marketing photographs merge with modern landscapes, driving home the changes that have taken place over the last 100 years.

Together, these works speak to the current climate crisis in a more encompassing way, and how it impacts us both at home and abroad. While we experience climate change differently across Canada or globally, this is something each part of the country and beyond must face if in different ways.

Kelsey Stephenson has shown work in Edmonton, AB, and across western Canada as well as internationally in both solo and group exhibitions. Her work has appeared in juried print shows across the world. She previously taught courses at the Alberta University of the Arts (formerly the Alberta College of Art & Design), and she is currently an Assistant Lecturer at the University of Alberta.

For more information on the Ottawa School of Art Orleans, its instructors, and classes visit www.artottawa.ca or call us at 613-580-2765.

Ottawa School of Art Orleans campus Gallery located in the Shenkman Arts Centre

Free Reception. All Welcome! 245 Centrum Blvd. Orleans ON. K1E 0A1

For more information please contact Nadine Argo, Gallery Coordinator 613-580-2765 or osao.gallery@artottawa.ca