Kelly Lycan is an installation and photo-based visual artist who lives and works in

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

Life

Lycan studied Photography at

Ryerson University Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU, or Toronto Met), formerly Ryerson University, is a public research university located in Toronto, Canada. The university's core campus is situated within the Garden District in downtown Toronto, although i ...

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

(then Ryerson Polytechnical University), completed her BFA at the

Nova Scotia College of Art and Design NSCAD University, also known as the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD), is a public university, public art school, art university in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The university is a co-educational institution tha ...

in Halifax in 1995, and completed her MFA at the

University of Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers college, UCSB joined ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

in 1998. As a solo artist she has exhibited at galleries across

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

including Presentation House Gallery, Plug In, Institute of Contemporary Art, and

Mercer Union Mercer Union is a Canadian artist-run centre in Toronto, Ontario, established in 1979 to exhibit contemporary art. History Mercer Union was founded in 1979 by artists Michael Balfe, Peter Blendell, Ric Evans, Peter Hill, Jamie Lyons, David MacW ...

. As a member of the service based artist collective

Instant Coffee Instant coffee is a beverage derived from brewed coffee beans that enables people to quickly prepare hot coffee by adding hot water or milk to coffee solids in powdered or crystallized form and stirring. The product was first invented in Inver ...

, she has exhibited at The America's Society;

Vancouver Art Gallery The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) is an art museum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The museum occupies a adjacent to Robson Square in downtown Vancouver, making it the largest art museum in Western Canada by building size. Designed by Fr ...

; Incheon Art Platform, South Korea;

Yerba Buena Center Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is a multi-disciplinary Contemporary art, contemporary arts center in San Francisco, California, United States. Located in Yerba Buena Gardens, YBCA features visual art, performance, and film/video that cel ...

, San Francisco; and the

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; ) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located on Dundas Street, Dundas Street West in the Grange Park (neighbourhood), Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, the museum complex takes up of phys ...

Artistic practice

Lycan's installation and photo-based practice explores the ways in which images and objects exist in the world, and "the way objects are valued, devalued, and revalued, dependent upon their place of display", Interested in the discrepancies between experience and reproduction, Lycan often re-purposes and re-contextualizes ordinary things, referencing the collections and methods of display found in museums, gift shops, and department stores. For example, for her 2014 exhibition ''Underglow'' at Presentation House Gallery, Lycan recreated the interior of the New York

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

art gallery

291 __NOTOC__ Year 291 ( CCXCI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known in Rome as the Year of the Consulship of Tiberianus and Dio (or, less frequently, year 1044 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomin ...

based on photographs taken by founder

Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz (; January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was k ...

in 1906. Her dual employment of photography and sculpture suggests a fluid relationship between the specifics of each medium. Her work has been described as "funny, critical, and ironic all at once."

Selected exhibitions

* ''White Hot'', Gallery TPW, 2009 * ''Bronze Tinfoil Ball,'' OR Gallery, 2011 * ''Autobiography for No One,'' Simon Fraser University Gallery, 2014 * ''Underglow'', Presentation House Gallery, 2014 * ''Ideas and Things'', Kamloops Art Gallery, 2015 * ''Superimposition: Sculpture and Image,'' Plug In, Institute of Contemporary Art, 2016 * ''More Than Nothing'', Burrard Art Foundation, 2016

Awards

In 2016, Lycan won the VIVA Award from the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts, an award given to mid-career BC artists. She was also the recipient of the City of Vancouver Live-Work Studio from 2012 to 2015, a competitive award that offers highly regarded Vancouver-based artists low-cost live-work studios for a period of three years in support of their artistic practice.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lycan, Kelly Living people Canadian installation artists Canadian women artists Year of birth missing (living people)