Using objects that belonged to her ancestors that she has embedded into driftwood, North Vancouver artist Tiki Mulvihill has created an exhibit that melds the past with the present.
“There’s kind of a quirky combination there, and the objects are situated within the cross-cultural perspective lens within Canada, which was the point of the exhibit, which I’ve called Ancestral Drift,” Mulvihill said during the opening of her exhibit at the Station House Gallery in Williams Lake.
The idea for the exhibit began to take shape based on information about her parents, she explained.
“My dad’s ancestors came from Sweden and Germany and my mom’s were English and Irish, and they all kind of drifted into this country that we live in on boats.”
Over time, her ancestors collected objects that they passed on to their children, who then gave them to Mulvihill’s parents.
“I decided I would use all these things that came from those people in this exhibit.”
When she started the installation, she was working 50 per cent of the time in a studio as an installation artist and 50 per cent of the time as an instructor for Capilano University teaching sculpture and drawing.
After her job ended at Capilano University she became a full-time artist and she’d accompany her husband Brian on Vancouver Island when he had to work there and she’d drive around collecting the driftwood for the show.
In the exhibit she added a sculpture of a man and one of a woman — both made out of wood.
In fact, one of the arms of the female sculpture is an oar.
“The man is kind of related to my dad and the woman is related to my mom,” she said.
Pointing to a surveying instrument that belonged to her father, Mulvihill showed where she had placed a map, inside showing the location where his ancestors were from.
Inside the eye piece of a transit level on top of the female sculpture, she also placed a map indicating where her mom came from.
“The location of what my mom told me was that everyone was British, which when I did some historical research it wasn’t actually true. Some of her ancestors were from Ireland, but she didn’t know about it.”
Pointing to another piece in the show, Mulvihill said she’d placed an intricate carved ivory pin that belonged to her grandmother.
In another piece next to an antique camera, she placed a slide she’d taken.
Originally from Calgary, Alta., Mulvihill pursued fine arts education at the University of Idaho and the University of Calgary.
Aside from working as an art instructor, she co-ordinated educational art programs, curated and taught dance.
Ancestral Drift will be in the upper gallery for the July and August.
See a future edition of the Tribune for coverage of Chilcotin Rodeo, a photography exhibit now on in the main gallery.
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