Transcending the boundaries of distance, two artists are connecting to grow alongside one another.
From Sept. 15 to Nov. 21, the Union Gallery is hosting Artists in the Garden. Starting in April, Christina Battle, an Alberta-based artist, and Jill Glatt, a Kingston-based artist, began growing parallel dye gardens. A dye garden is a garden dedicated to growing specific plants for the purpose of creating natural dyes, fibers, and yarns. What grew out of this project is their exhibit, which displays creations made using the plants from their gardens to showcase nature’s giving essence.
The pair was connected earlier this year through Morgan Wedderspoon, the gallery director for the Union Gallery. Wedderspoon, who played an active role in bringing the exhibition to life, reached out to Battle for a “visiting artist” position, since she tends to work in her native Alberta, while Glatt was brought on for a local perspective.
In an interview with The Journal, Glatt sat down to talk about the exhibit and her partnership with Battle.
Although the two connected in April, this wasn’t Glatt’s first time engaging with Battle’s work. In a small way, their collaboration began back in 2024 when Glatt saw Battle’s work, an exhibition called Under Metallic Skies, at Museum London in London, Ont.
“I remember thinking, ‘wow, this is so cool. This is what I want to do,’” Glatt said.
Introduced by Wedderspoon, the pair met online, separated by almost 3,500 kilometres.
“Being virtual is essential to [Battle’s] practice, and it was a good learning experience for me,” Glatt said when asked about how their separation played into their partnership.
“It was a challenge of engagement,” she added, sharing that their exhibit’s curated reading list was one of the ways in which they connected and developed their ideas.
Glatt explained that a lot of their collaboration was asking themselves questions about how they each create and share work as a means to discuss climate change, colonialism, and fascism.
The direct negative influence climate change and unpredictable weather had on the artists was clearly represented through Battle’s piece, delayed by climate change, a collection of 14 quilted pillows hanging from the gallery’s Feature Wall. Each were dyed with plant material and made with organic cotton.
The cushions emerged as a literal and figurative landing space for Battle after she could not grow the plants she wanted to, due to the especially wet growing season in Alberta.
“It’s been a tough summer, and the ordered, careful process of sewing soft and pillowy forms offered some relief. Really, I didn’t know what else to do,” Battle wrote in her artist statement.
Glatt’s artwork was mostly comprised of fabric sculptures and a fabric banner, titled Vessels. These works were created using cotton dyed with plant material. She finished Vessels the night before the exhibit opened on Sept. 15.
The exhibit was accompanied by tiny pamphlets for visitors to take home that contained “Recipes from the Residency,” including ingredients and directions for soy milk and strawberry rhubarb compote. Once again, Artists in the Garden shows how much nature has to offer us.
“Everything is so tangled up in one another’s lives. We are dependent on nature, even if we feel we are separated from it. We are beholden to it,” Glatt said.
If there’s anything to weed out of this exhibit, it’s recognizing how benevolent nature is. From necessities, like food and sustenance, to a bright palette of colours, the natural world offers us endless reasons to prove it’s worth fighting for.
Glatt and Battle take up that fight in a gentle, soft way that by no means diminishes its power.
Tags
art exhibit, garden, Union Gallery
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