Reception for Lois Andison at the Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery | Fine Arts

Lois Andison, threading water (still), 2014.

all the world began with a yes marks the Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery (KWAG) premiere of two works recently acquired for the Permanent Collection. This exhibition borrows its title from the opening lines of Brazilian author Clarice Lispector’s final book, The Hour of the Star (1977) in which the story’s unreliable narrator declares, “I only achieve simplicity with enormous effort.” A parallel for this sentiment can be found in the dialogue between threading water and comb, two works that anchor Andison’s exhibition. In threading water, a solitary swimmer moves through a body of water with a giant comb, much like the one that Andison has realized as a sculpture. Balancing agility and stamina, the swimmer performs a surrealist gesture shaped by a subtle play on words between a grooming technique to remove hair (threading) and the act of staying afloat in water through constant movement (treading). At once humorous and poetic, these works allow us to see a swimmer as both a stylus and an agent of change.

The work is on display at KWAG from October 4, 2019 to January 12, 2020 with a special public reception November 1, 2019 at 7 pm.