NEWS RELEASE
SAULT STE. MARIE MUSEUM
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The Sault Ste. Marie Museum is excited to invite you to join us on Nov. 6 at 6:30 p.m. for the opening of A Fragile Beauty, an exhibit of works created by acclaimed and established artists Gordon Burke, Michael Burtch, and Annie King.
This exhibition includes sculpture and painting, multimedia works, ceramics, and natural specimens. Burke, Burtch, and King as a starting point have taken work that they have independently created that revolves around butterflies, moths and small birds. Eschewing the trap of facile prettiness that each subject engenders in popular culture, they have instead investigated, among many other things, the existential threat that faces, in a microcosm, their chosen subjects, but in a macrocosm, all humanity and the planet itself.
There is also in their work a thread of celebration of the wonder of nature, the instinctive drive that informs the behaviour of all life at a deeply unconscious level; the metamorphosis and cycle of migrations of the monarch butterfly, the attraction of the moth to light, the collective murmuration patterns of the starling and the dazzling colour patterns and luminescence of butterflies, moths and birds.
Burtch's sculptures combine human form with butterfly wings, suggesting the interrelationship and interdependence of all living creatures. The sculptures are in high relief and are wall mounted. King explores life, death and rebirth through both her sculpted collages and crystal-clear starlings, each individually cast and hung from above, to gently sway in air currents. Burke's ceramics celebrate the natural beauty of the butterfly and its life cycle, and his butterfly collection represents specimens from around the globe.
A Fragile Beauty: Gordon Burke, Michael Burtch, Annie King
- Date: Opening Nov. 6
- Time: 6:30 - 9:30 p.m.
- Location: Sault Ste. Marie Museum 690 Queen St E
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