VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA.- The Vancouver Art Gallery presents "Liz Magor," on view through February 23, 2003. This is a solo exhibition of the work of Canadian artist, Liz Magor, features a remarkable collection of sculpture, photography and installation pieces. The survey brings together a total of 18 works created over the past 13 years and explores the artist’s interest in a widely shared desire to escape the uncertainties of the present into the realms of nature, history and the domestic.

"The Gallery first exhibited the work of Liz Magor in 1980 and this survey is long overdue. Along with a significant new publication, this exhibition provides recognition to one of Vancouver’s principal visual artists," said Kathleen Bartels, Director, Vancouver Art Gallery. "I am delighted to present the work of such an important Canadian artist in collaboration with The Power Plant in Toronto."

Magor’s rigorous investigation of material and form has resulted in fresh perspectives using familiar icons-a cabin in the snow, a case of Kokanee beer, a woman’s raincoat, a ubiquitous dog, a hollow log. Ordinary objects are remade, cast from the original item in non-traditional materials, creating sculptures and installations with a delusional quality, a feeling that things are not quite as they seem. Despite the sculptural simplicity and clarity of the work, the artist’s subtle manipulation of texture and material challenges visual assumptions of what is real and what is not.

Magor’s work has for some time explored the desire for seclusion and issues around identity. The unattainable ideal of escape into nature and the search for authentic experience reverberates through much of the work in this survey. Recent work also expands on these ideas by dealing with notions of refuge, shelter and the idea of domestic defence-how we stash, hoard and protect ourselves with commodities. Magor has a rare aesthetic ability to choose visually powerful motifs to convey these themes.

"Magor’s work suggests narrative interpretations: stories can be attached to each of the photographs, sculptures and installations that make up this exhibition," said Grant Arnold, Curator, Vancouver Art Gallery. "However through their persistent emphasis on reproduction and imitation¾the sense that what appears to be real isn’t¾the very basis on which any certain meaning can be found is called into question. The viewer is constantly returned to a position of doubt, caught in a never-ending process of trying to find a secure place through which to anchor the self in the world."