The Kelowna Art Gallery is pleased to feature Sci-POP by Victoria-based artist Ingrid Mary Percy in her first exhibition in the Interior of B.C.

Sci-POP brings together two bodies of work produced since 2002 – ATOMIKA and SPIRA VIRA. In both series, the artist produces science-based imagery with the aid of a common children’s toy, either Lite Brite or Spirograph. Real and imagined pathogenic viruses, microscopic organisms and cellular shapes are rendered in bright pegs of color and finely drawn lines. Many of us who played with Lite Brite or Spirograph have memories of these toys. This familiarity draws us into a common history with the artist.

But these are not child-like pictures. The imagery presented is not of a clown, or a boat, or a pleasing arrangement of mechanical spirals and twirls. This is the imagery of adulthood, of disease and decay. This is the imagery of our imagination and of the unseen world of bacteria and viruses that lives in all of us, causing anxiety and fear. Yet, referencing contemporary art theory and practice, the artist brings strong elements of design, fantasy and beauty to her subject. With ATOMIKA and SPIRA VIRA, Ingrid Mary Percy has produced an interesting and disturbing interface between art and science, toy and tool, childhood and adulthood.

Ingrid Mary Percy studied visual art at the Emily Car Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver (BFA, DFA, 1995) and at the University of Victoria (MFA, 1997). Her work has been exhibited in group and solo exhibitions internationally for over ten years. The artist currently teaches painting and drawing in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Victoria.