In the Studio

Charles H. Scott Gallery is pleased to present the work of one of Vancouver’s leading artists. lan Wallace: In the Studio is a survey exhibition that explores the reoccurring theme of the studio in lan Wallace’s work from the 1970’s to the present. Through his artistic practice and work as a writer and a teacher, Wallace has had a significant influence on the development of contemporary art in Vancouver. Many of the cities foremost artists were once Wallace’s students. In summarizing his interest in the studio as a subject Wallace says, “As the space of production – the specific location of the construction of artwork in both the material and intellectual sense, as the place where the idea is produced as an object for contemplation and distribution – the image of the studio functions as a pictorial grounding of the conceptual aspects of my work.”

Over the last thirty-five years Wallace’s studio artworks have included documentary photographs of his work space and that of fellow artists’ and in 1983 he transformed the OR Gallery into a studio/performance space inverting the site of presentation into a site of production. Through the image of the studio, Wallace examines what constitutes intellectual work, studio practice and the way value is attached to these activities. This series of work poses increasingly relevant questions in this era of “post-studio” practice.