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Brenda Draney: Drink from the River Exhibition

Brenda Draney: Drink from the River

Information

  • Date

    January 20 - May 5, 2024
  • Location

    Third Floor

This exhibition features works by Edmonton-based artist Brenda Draney that delve into complex questions around the notion of intimacy. Sifting through images culled from her own personal archive and memory, Brenda Draney recalls figures and moments that have shaped her lived experiences. In her paintings, however, Draney leaves space for the viewer to reflect upon the images and the subject matter at hand. Brenda Draney’s artworks explore the relationship between how we make memories and how we build knowledge, by way of storytelling. Examining the ways in which narratives are not only formed and shaped by personal and shared events but also influenced by socially accepted and perpetuated constructs, her works invite us to constantly reconsider what we think we know, and how we come to know it.

Initiated, organized, and circulated by The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto. Supported by Sobey Art Foundation. This exhibition is made possible with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

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Meet the Artist

Brenda Draney Photo

Brenda Draney

Brenda Draney (b. 1976, member of Sawridge First Nation, Treaty 8; lives/works in Edmonton) proposes painting as a reciprocal relationship between a viewer and artwork. Dream-like, her paintings present a tension between representational specificity and the space of unpainted canvas. Rather than simply represent what has been seen, she renders that which is unsaid or what is unable to be articulated.

Draney’s recent notable exhibitions include The Arts Club of Chicago (2023); The Power Plant, Toronto (2022); McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Vaughn, ON (2020); NS-Dokumentationszentrum, Munich (2019); Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff (2019); Fogo Island Arts, NL (2019); Oakville Galleries, ON (2018); Kitchener-Waterloo Gallery, ON (2017); Audain Gallery, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver (2017); National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2016); The Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton (2015); and Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon (2013). She received her Master’s of Applied Arts from Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver (2010) and her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from the University of Alberta, Edmonton (2006). Draney was shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award in 2016, the recipient of the Eldon and Anne Foote Visual Arts Prize, Edmonton, in 2014, and the winner of the RBC Painting Competition in 2009.