Kelowna, BC, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 5, 2020
Exhibition: Backstitch
Artist: Nicole Young
Date: September 18, 2020 – October 31, 2020
Location: Alternator Centre, Window Space

Backstitch: Overlapping Stitches Converging Communities

An upcoming exhibition at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art invites visitors to explore themes of community and the gift economy from September 18th, 2020 – October 31, 2020.

In the exhibition Backstitch, Nicole Young displays a large-scale art piece resembling a quilt, created from sewing together hand dyed textiles. All the textiles in the work are a mix of materials, such as plant matter used for dyes, that were donated to the artist by community members.

As an environmental activist, Young noticed a disconnect between her work as an environmentalist and her work as an artist, because painting in acrylics is essentially painting with plastic. In order to bring these two facets together cohesively, she switched from using acrylic paints to creating inks and dyes out of plant matter.

The title Backstitch refers to one of the strongest, most adaptable, and permanent hand stitches used in the tradition of sewing.

Young explains that “a community is its strongest and most adaptable when members support one another” so this installation piece will be a visual representation of the value in offering gifts freely to one another.

Young is an interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of visual art and environmental preservation. Her process is motivated by a desire to reduce waste and build a visual language out of leftovers. Her pieces merge science and visual art – recording how plants interact with one another on a visual plane or examining the impact of human interference in nature.
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The Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art is an artist-run centre located in Kelowna at
the Rotary Centre for the Arts, 421 Cawston Avenue. The Alternator Centre for
Contemporary Art is a registered non-profit charitable organization dedicated to the
development of the creative community. Since 1989, the Alternator has shown the work
of emerging Canadian artists, focused on innovative and non-traditional mediums
engaged in social and cultural issues.

September 5, 2020
Attn Editors: For more information, images, or to schedule an interview with the artist
please contact Lorna McParland at [email protected] or 250-868-2298.]