WENDI COPELAND

During the Walking and Art residency, Wendi Copeland intends to create a mixed media sculptural installation entitled: Intersections. This installation will feature images, specimens, and other fragmentary evidence from Banff National Park. Evidence will be gathered by the artist on daily walks during the residency program. Intersections highlights the shifts in pace, rhythm, and atmosphere that are experienced day to day when a natural environment verges directly on the urban. As the viewer strolls through a series of sculptural models and maquettes and juxtaposed imagery of manmade and natural paths against the local environment, one may contemplate of the relationship between mountain wilderness and the regulated urban town site that is central to the lived experience of Banff.

Artist biography: While studying at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2005, Wendi Copeland began to explore the unique patterns of deterioration she observed on sidewalk surfaces. These multilayered investigations of the walked urban landscape, inform the groundwork for her practice. Presently studying as a fourth year visual arts student at Emily Carr Institute, Copeland combines photography, printing, painting, and sculpture to create interdisciplinary installations. Through these materials, she explores themes suggesting archaeology of everyday life. Copeland seeks to engage the viewer in an imaginary walk along the same visual paths that she has followed, affirming the value and beauty of the ordinary details surrounding us as artifacts of our present experience.h