The Contemporary Art Gallery is pleased to present a new 
body of work by Shannon Oksanen, In Summerland, Oksanen 
remakes the waterskiing scene from the 1965 film Viva Las Vegas. 
Her 35mm film is a combination of visual estimations that 
represent a moment in America when a shift in consciousness
was occurring. The film continues her interest in showmanship 
sports following in the line of works such as Spins, (2002) and 
Vanishing Point,(2001) that focus on figure skating and 
surfboarding, using them to capture a time period, and more 
specifically the ideals of an era as it is being lost or defined.
Here Oksanen uses water skiing, saturated colours,costume, 
choreography and music to set back time, calling to mind an era 
and defining it stylistically. She will also present a new 
painting and drawing series that brings together her interest in 
portraiture, celebrity and nostalgia. For this new body of work, 
Oksanen chooses Elvis Presley as her subject, adding unabashedly 
to the seemingly endless assemblage of images of this pop king. 
The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue

which will be launched at the opening reception.

 

Oksanen has a growing international reputation and has 
participated in group exhibitions at the CCA Wattis Institute 
for Contemporary Art, San Francisco (2004), VTO Gallery, London, 
England (2004), 303 Gallery, New York (2005)and The Charles. H. 
Scott Gallery, Vancouver (2006). She is represented by
Lawrence Eng Gallery in Vancouver where she recently exhibited a 
little boat adrift on the sea of life and other works including 
some papier maché balloons.* Oksanen participated in There are 
Those: Drawing by Six Artists at the CAG in 2006. Reviews of her 
work have appeared in Artforum, New York and the Globe and Mail, 
Toronto.

 

Presenting Sponsor for Summerland is the Audain Foundation

Adobe Systems