EXHIBITION REVIEW
Heart of Process // Evan Lee: Forged at the Art Gallery at Evergreen
Casey Wei
Forged marks my first visit to Art Gallery at Evergreen, a modest space within Evergreen Cultural Centre, just a few steps from the terminus Evergreen line Skytrain station, an hour away from Vancouver’s downtown core. Upon entering the gallery, I am met with a vinyl wall text introducing the exhibition, foregrounding the double-edged meaning of the word — raw materials harnessed by imagination, labour, skill, to produce both one-of-a-kind luxury originals and their cheap, mass-produced counterparts.
Curated by the gallery’s interim curator Kate Henderson, Forged consists of six distinct series of works, grouped into pairs under thematic clusters titled: Fakery, Economy, Value. Walking clockwise from the wall text, we begin with Fakery, consisting of Fugazi (2016) and Ichiban (2016/2021). Fugazi consists of four high-resolution scans of cubic zirconia,1 very pop-art in their “‘artefacted’ digital landscape rife with dazzling colours and patterns.”2 Paired with Fugazi is the only sculptural work in the show, Ichiban — instant-noodles cooked to pliability then dunked in acrylic medium, planted on plinths in the centre of the room, with an additional painterly noodle triptych on the wall.
