Karin Jones's Ornament and Instrument exhibit opens at the Burnaby Art Gallery on February 3
Show includes Worn, a Victorian mourning dress crafted from synthetic hair, alongside new works
Karin Jones’s Worn, 2014-2015, made of hair extensions, cotton bolls, hair of the artist. From the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum. Photo by Eydis Einarsdottir
On February 3, the Burnaby Art Gallery is opening Ornament and Instrument, a survey of the intricate, meticulous, and visually compelling work of Vancouver interdisciplinary artist Karin Jones.
Jones’s work, Worn, on loan from the Royal Ontario Museum, is a Victorian mourning dress crafted from synthetic hair. It evokes the complexity of African identity shaped by colonial displacement, slavery, and oppression. Rooting this work to the local, a new iteration of the piece, Freed, utilizes an early 20th-century dress from the collection of the Burnaby Village Museum. Over this survey exhibition, Jones’s history as a goldsmith is highlighted through Damascene inlay on objects such as farm tools.
Jones received a Diploma in Jewellery Art and Design from Vancouver Community College, then embarking on a 20-year career as a goldsmith and independent artisan. She completed an MFA in Jewellery at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) in Halifax, followed by international apprenticeships in jewellery and blacksmithing techniques. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Royal Ontario Museum, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and Mephis’s Metal Museum).
The exhibit runs until April 16, with the opening reception on February 2, from 7 to 9 pm. Find more information here.
Post sponsored by Burnaby Art Gallery.