Famed Proposed UFOs exhibit now featured at Oxygen Art Centre
By Contributor
The Oxygen Art Centre brought in interdisciplinary artist Natalie Purschwitz to Nelson to speak on her new show, Proposed UFOs.
Purschwitz, in Nelson during the weekend, said of the project, Proposed UFOs that the work acts as an entry point to a fictional landscape, both surreal and familiar at the same time.
The outfits and prints in the show will encourage the viewer to envision a proposal for an unlikely event. Purschwitz says that her inspiration for the title came from conceptual artist Julius Koller (1939 – 2007), who used the UFO acronym in various ways to describe the relationship between man and the cosmos, or the unknown.
Early on in the project, Purschwitz imagined bringing jewelry like outfits into the mountaintops of British Columbia, perhaps questioning the alienness of one to the other or challenging the beauty of nature as it is juxtaposed against culture. One thing is certain we are in for surprise.
Purschwitz is a multitalented artist who exhibits her artwork internationally, designs costumes for a wide range of productions and maintains a small clothing line called Hunt & Gather.
She has studied at the University of Calgary (BA, Archaeology) the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Art and Science (NY, NY) and Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (BFA, Media Arts). In 2012 she was a recipient of the Canada Council for the Arts International Residency award in Paris, France. Purschwitz grew up in Radium Hot Springs, a small town in the East Kootenays.
The exhibition, at the Oxygen Art Centre runs from now until June 21st.
