NANCY ANNE MCPHEE
FRAGMENT 47

NOVEMBER 1 TO 25, 2017

The Red Head Gallery is pleased to present Fragment 47, an exhibition by artist Nancy Anne McPhee.

Eros shook my
Mind like a mountain wind falling on oak trees
- Sappho fr. 47[1]

Sappho’s 47th fragment compares love to a mountain wind so strong that it shakes oak trees.  Sappho was one of the great Greek lyric poets whose work has mostly been lost.  We have only fragments of parchment with bits of her poems.  The 47th fragment would have been part of a larger work; what we have is a sliver of a larger narrative, a caught moment of an image of wind rushing through oak trees and the sense of undiluted emotion.  It is this simultaneous hush and pith that Fragment 47 attempts to grasp, and the sense that this is only a moment between other unillustrated things.  This work draws with light and shadow to trace lost narratives, scale and inbetweeness.

Fragment 47 covers an entire gallery wall from floor to ceiling and side-to-side.  The oak tree is created with textured prefab wallpaper in bark and leaf designs.

Joining Fragment 47 is a new series by McPhee, Mineralogy. This work will be shown for the first time, and are photographs of minerals and crystals.

Nancy Anne McPhee is an installation artist originally from Alberta and now based in Hamilton, ON. McPhee has a BFA from the University of Victoria, an MFA from Concordia University, and has worked as an instructor at Concordia University and NSCAD University. McPhee has exhibited nationally and internationally in commercial galleries, artist-run centres and public galleries, and has received funding from the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.  Recent exhibitions include upcoming solo shows at Agnes Jamieson Gallery (ON) and Grenfell Campus Art Gallery (NL).

[1] Sappho, Fragment 47, trans. Anne Carson (New York: Vintage Books, 2003), 99.

Nancy Anne McPhee acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.

Nancy Anne McPhee remercie le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.