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Unique exhibit inspired by romp on the beach

A holiday routine of strolling the beach in Mexico with her miniature dachshund barking at the waves inspired a unique exhibition for a Lethbridge artist.
Lethbridge artist Catherine Ross’ exhibition Impossible Really!, currently displayed at the Okotoks Art Gallery, combines video with three-dimensional art.
Lethbridge artist Catherine Ross’ exhibition Impossible Really!, currently displayed at the Okotoks Art Gallery, combines video with three-dimensional art.

A holiday routine of strolling the beach in Mexico with her miniature dachshund barking at the waves inspired a unique exhibition for a Lethbridge artist.

Each return to her vacation spot had Catherine Ross watching in amusement as her pint-sized pooch Appleton ran up and down the shore, patrolling the beach and speaking to the waves.

“In his little 12 inches worth of height he thought he could stop the waves,” she said. “This activity was very serious to him. I was amused, I was taken, I was intrigued. I was wondering what does he think he’s up to?”

In 2011 Ross captured footage of this comical scene and after Appleton died she felt inspired to create an exhibition combining a video projection of the ocean with 21 realistic bronze interpretations of her beloved pet.

“I said, ‘I think I can do this with the sentimentality and the relationship I had with the dog and have it so it reads universally and not as a memento,’” she said. “In art you use things in your life and I thought I would just let myself use something that was fairly important to me.”

The exhibition, which Ross calls Impossible Really!, debuted at an art gallery in Lethbridge in the fall of 2015 and will be at the Okotoks Art Gallery Jan. 14 to Feb. 11.

“The projector is on the floor so the dogs and the people in the gallery interrupt the projection of the video and the dogs cast shadows on the floor and on the wall and the dogs absorb the video image on their skin,” she explained. “There’s a lot of interruptions and intervals and engagement that evolve through placement, that evolve through the relationship with the film, the object and the viewers.”

Ross said she developed a love for sculpting in recent years.

“I do a lot of replications in my practice and I do that through casting whether it’s through vbronze or aluminum or plaster,” she said.

“(Bronze) is very permanent and it’s really quite gorgeous. It’s very seductive and it’s surprisingly easy to work with. The handwork that’s required is somewhat easy because it’s a soft metal.”

When it comes to molding a new creation, animals are often Ross’ subject of choice.

“I’ve worked with images of animals for most of my career,” she said. “I started out in 1986 making wooden rocking horses. In the ’90s when I moved to Lethbridge I started making birds. In 1995 I started making starfish, back to making more birds.”

Ross found Appleton to be the perfect subject for the 21 sculptures, which she created in three different poses by making slight variations to the head, body and tail.

“I developed into the sculptures the intimacy of the moment,” she said. “It’s about the rhythm of the ocean and how do you express duration in sculptural terms. It presents the rhythm of repetition and gesture of the dog with three different poses.”

Ross said the idea of the exhibit is for the viewers to engage physically by walking through the sculptures, sitting down beside them and touching them.

“I wanted to engage the audience with a sense of understanding that they can immediately walk into a space, see the work, understand it and then like an onion get into the overlapping areas of the piece,” she said. “At the opening (in Lethbridge) a young girl who came into the space saw her shadow and started spinning her dress. My colleagues at the University (of Lethbridge, where Ross worked at the time) would have a different engagement with the piece.”

Getting her audience to interact with her art is nothing new for Ross.

Her first exhibition, featuring rocking horses, had viewers sitting on and riding her art.

“My work has always engaged the public, engaged the viewers, which is why I didn’t have to distance myself artistically from the personal connection to the object,” she said. “People don’t have to have art history in their back pocket, they just really have to have eyes and hearts and wonder for the ability to experience it.”

An artist reception with the opportunity to meet Ross will take place in the Okotoks Art Gallery Jan. 13 at 7 p.m.

The gallery is open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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