A new survey exhibition of works by seminal West Coast visual artist Gary Lee-Nova is now showing at the Burnaby Art Gallery (BAG).

Oblique Trajectories presents works from a period spanning more than 40 years. And according to BAG curator Jennifer Cane, they speak as incisively now about contemporary human experience as they did decades ago.

“The exhibition allows a glimpse of Lee-Nova’s extensive research of various systems,” Jennifer said in a statement. “He has been looking at patterns within colour, measurement and language for more than 50 years. There are important comments on the double-edged swords we are presented with through technologies, within these works. The works speak well within this particular period of time.”

Though perhaps best known for his hard-edge abstract paintings, the BAG’s wide-ranging exhibition showcases Gary’s interdisciplinary inclinations. Large-scale paintings are accompanied by sculpture, lithographic prints based on paper collages, silkscreen prints and digital collage.

Many of the works also offer a compelling glimpse into a formative moment of regional art history. An important figure to the “West Coast Scene” during the 1960s and ‘70s (a period art historian and UBC professor Scott Watson has referred to as Vancouver’s second “renaissance”), Gary was closely linked with other legendary Vancouver artists including Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov.

Alongside Michael and Vincent, Gary co-founded Image Bank — an “international correspondence art network that saw the exchange of thousands of inventive images, ideas and ephemera, much of it through the post,” according to Border Crossings magazine. Gary’s use of the spectrum motif (visible in many of the paintings and prints in Oblique Trajectories) would spur the ambitious Colour Bar Research Project, according to the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, which is now home to the Gary Lee-Nova fonds.

Working under the pseudonym Artimus Rat or Art Rat, Gary collaborated with the New York Corres Sponge Dance School of Vancouver. But his participation in scenes and disciplines outside what could strictly be called “visual art” didn’t end there; Gary was also active at the Sound Gallery, a “place for poets, artists and dancers to collaborate,” according to artist Gregg Simpson, and a hub for the Vancouver avant-garde scene at the time. Gary was likewise involved with the Intermedia Society, an organization focused on building bridges between art and technology. (Upon its foundation, Intermedia’s first head of the Board was renowned painter and ECU community member Jack Shadbolt).

A filmmaker since the mid-sixties, Gary released Steel Mushrooms in 1968, which you can watch in its entirety via the Vancouver Art in the Sixties online archive.

He has exhibited extensively throughout his career, at galleries, museums and events including the Vancouver Art Gallery, Bau-Xi Gallery (Toronto), University of Saskatchewan, the Western Front, the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, the Burnaby Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Canada, the Demarco Gallery (Edinburgh) and the Paris Biennale. His work is included in collections such as the National Gallery of Canada, Canada Council Art Bank, the Institute of Contemporary Art (London), and the Vancouver Art Gallery.

At least one of the works in Oblique Trajectories comes full circle with the current exhibition; the sculpture Out to Metric was originally created in 1975 for an exhibition at the Burnaby Art Gallery.

“Made from more than 1400 wooden yardsticks, it was built as Canada switched from the Imperial to the metric system,” the BAG writes. “The work replicates the corner of a room, giving the feel of an architect’s cut-away drawing.”

Bridging the mediums of sculpture and installation, the work also reflects Gary’s decades-long exploration of the theme of measurement. (This motif, the BAG notes, extends not only throughout Gary’s historical work, but reaches into the present via his recent digital works on paper).

Gary is also a longtime member of the Emily Carr community, having attended what was then called the Vancouver School of Art in the early 1960s. He also taught at ECU in various iterations for more than 30 years. In 2018, following his retirement from teaching, Gary was named Professor Emeritus.

Though his professorial days are behind him, Gary continues to work as an artist, “creating single projects that often take years to execute,” according to the BAG.

Oblique Trajectories is showing now through April 18, by advance appointment. Book your visit now by calling the BAG at 604-297-4422.