Derek Michael Besant
Fifteen Restless Nights
- Publisher
- Kelowna Art Gallery
- Initial publish date
- Apr 2012
- Category
- General
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781896749303
- Publish Date
- Apr 2012
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
This publication accompanied the Kelowna Art Gallery's installation of this work by Calgary-based artist Derek Michael Besant. The text is by the gallery's curator, Liz Wylie. There are also fifteen short fictional texts prepared for this show/publication by the award-winning Canadian writer Diane Schoemperlen.To produce this series of work, Besant set out in 2005 to travel across Canada and stay in cheap, roadside motels. In the mornings he would observe other guests leaving in their cars and would try the doors of their recently vacated rooms. If these were unlocked, he went in with his camera, taking pictures of their tossed bedding. These black-and-white images were altered digitally, blown up and output onto large fabric panels for installation. The overall mood of the work is dark and eerie, reminiscent of film noir, with the mounds of sheets and quilts looking like other-worldly landscapes. All works in the series/exhibition are reproduced.
About the author
Liz Wylie is curator of the Kelowna Art Gallery in Kelowna, BC.