Exhibition Dates and Location
Stephanie Gagne's Solo Exhibition Living Dead Girl is on display in our Main Hall Gallery from January 11th - February 27th 2025. Our Main Hall Gallery is open from 10:00am - 4:00pm Tuesdays to Saturdays and is located in the Aldergrove Kinsmen Community Center (26770 29 Ave, Aldergrove, BC V4W 3B8). This exhibition is on display in our Main Hall Gallery in tandem with Marcie Rohr's Solo Exhibition - What to Make of This.
Artist Statement
Living Dead Girl explores the tension between beauty and decay, innocence and transformation, using the symbolism of insect wings. This exhibition brings together a series of screen prints, paintings, and cyanotypes to delve into the bittersweet process of growing up, reflecting on childhood nostalgia and the unsettling shift into adulthood.
Through a blend of abstraction and text, the work engages with the complexities of personal change. While insect wings might traditionally evoke dark associations, I use them to suggest a queer reimagining of growth, one that embraces loss and transformation as integral parts of the journey. The exhibition asks us to reconsider our understanding of beauty and mortality, proposing that decay can be a space for possibility and renewal.
By juxtaposing humour with darker imagery, Living Dead Girl invites a more fluid, non-linear perspective on growing up. It challenges conventional ideas of innocence and experience, suggesting that transformation is not only inevitable but also rich with unexpected beauty. The series reflects on how stories of growing up are never linear, they are strange, multifaceted, and alive with potential.
Artist Biography
Stephanie Gagne is a Vancouver-based visual artist whose interdisciplinary practice spans sculpture, photography, drawing, and video. She holds an MFA from Simon Fraser University and a BFA from Emily Carr University. Her work often explores themes of popular culture, local neighbourhoods, and childhood nostalgia, with a focus on how these elements shape memory and identity.
In addition to her artistic practice, Gagne currently works as a gallery assistant at The Polygon Gallery and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, and as a teaching assistant in the Media History department at Emily Carr University. Gagne has exhibited her work across Vancouver’s non-profit arts spaces, including Capture Photography Festival, Grunt Gallery, Malaspin Printmakers, Or Gallery, Unit/Pitt, Vivo Media Arts Centre, Vancouver Mural Festival, and Vancouver Art Gallery