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The Stridents

2016-2017

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The Stridents delves into vocal and textual performances of lamentation and retreat featuring a series of text-based textile sculptures, the print series Say It's Ain't So and the sound installation Mirror for Recluses. 

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"Andrea Roberts' words are sculpted into laser-cut fabric mounted on silver powder-coated steel structures as though backed with the grisaille mesh patterns of stained glass windows and confession screens. Telling a story, recording a vision, writing a history, is to be caught somewhere between life and death, between lamentation and faith. Say it Ain't So articulates this temporal tension between preservation and loss, referencing one of the earliest methods of sound recording, the phonoautograph and its use of soot to index sound." 

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- Exhibition text by Emily Doucet from The Stridents at TRUCK Contemporary, 2017:

Brightly lit interior gallery, with grey concrete floors and white walls. In the foreground, the camera points through the backside of a black mesh fabric sculpture with the words "SIGH GASP HISS" in reverse, stacked on top of each other cut out in the fabric. The form of the sculpture suggests a confessional booth, or a screen wall, somewhat intimate but also religious. In the background is a sculpture in the shape of a wall-mounted commercial cabinet, but where there would be glass in a store, there is bright safety orange silk hanging down with a cloverleaf mesh cut out of it. Inside the mesh pattern are the words "TOTAL INSOLVENCY".
The front gallery of Plug In ICA in Winnipeg, it has fluorescent lights, grey concrete floors and white walls. In the foreground, the camera points through the backside of a black mesh fabric sculpture with the words "SIGH GASP HISS" in reverse, stacked on top of each other and cut out in the fabric. The form of the sculpture suggests a confessional booth, or a screen wall, somewhat intimate but also religious. In the background is a sculpture in the shape of a wall-mounted commercial cabinet, but where there would be glass in a store, there is bright safety orange silk hanging down with a cloverleaf mesh cut out of it. Inside the mesh pattern are the words "TOTAL INSOLVENCY". At the back right there is a door that leads to the front gallery space.
A framed print of Say it Ain't So #1 by AO Roberts. on a white wall. The frame is a floating frame made of light beige hardwood. The print features a rectangle-shaped smokey field with a white border, around which the smoke licks the edges. The print was made with lampblack, or soot, from a torch. At the center of the smoke are the words stacked on top of each other in gold-ish green sans serif font "GOLD RUE AMETHYST HAIR".
A framed print of Say it Ain't So #1 by AO Roberts. on a white wall. The frame is a floating frame made of light beige hardwood. The print features a rectangle-shaped smokey field with a white border, around which the smoke licks the edges. The print was made with lampblack, or soot, from a torch. At the center of the smoke are the words stacked on top of each other in gold-ish pink sans serif font "LITIUM MILK MELAMINE ROSE".
Interior gallery at TRUCK Contemporary in Calgary, Alberta. The camera points toward the ceiling, and at the center of the frame is a suspended floral print banner with black trim. A circular mesh pattern is cut out of the banner, and in the resist is the phrase "THERE IS GOLD DUST IN THE AIR FOR YOU". The banner has a promising feel backed up by the Renaissance-looking multicolour of black floral that it is made out of.
Diagonal shot of the print series Say it Ain't So, featuring four out of five of the prints in a row on a white wall. The frame is a floating frame made of light brown hardwood, the print features a rectangle-shaped smokey field with a white border, around which the smoke licks the edges. At the center of each print a series of four words stacked on top of each other. The prints say from left to right, in purple ink "CAUL HEMLOCK LEAD KNOT"; in rose ink "MERCHANT LIGHT LAVENDER TONGUE", in yellow gold-ish "GOLD RUE AMETHYST HAIR"; and in rose ink "LITHIUM MILK MELAMINE ROSE".
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