Valerie Durant | Influx: Waiting on the Water

Exhibition Dates

March 27 to May 2, 2025

Opening

Thursday, March 27, 2025, 6 – 8 PM

Location

3-1244 Cartwright St, Vancouver, BC V6H 3R7 on Granville Island

New Leaf Editions is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition, “Influx: Waiting on the Water” by Valerie Durant. The body of work melds botanical ice photographs & sculptures with camera-less cyanotype images.

Exhibition Description

Influx: Waiting on the Water
Durant began gathering botanical and inorganic remnants, as a silent pursuit, on the cusp of spring in 2020.

Layered in water as sculptural assemblages, they were frozen as a cohesive mass. As the ice melts, when returned to nature, the state of flux between stasis and dissipation is captured in these time based works.

The painterly images, incorporate analog and digital processes including scans, reversals and cyanotypes. This approach honours contemporary photographic practises, while referencing Dutch still-life paintings, memento mori, a reminder of the fleeting nature of life.

The work explores the persistence of time, continuum, lifecycles in nature, the infinite ebb and flow of matter and the personification of water as source.

Durant reflects on mortality, aging and the human condition, touching on themes of loss and human fragility.

The work serves as a mindful inquiry into our warming environment, interpreting climate change as a call for urgent self-reflection and global transformation, questioning contemporary notions of the fundamental materiality of both living and manufactured objects.

Throughout the exhibition, cyanotype images will be created from the melting tower of frozen botanicals, further connecting the work to themes of impermanence and environmental change.

Artist Biography

Valerie Durant’s interdisciplinary art practise engages with found objects, photography, sculpture and sound, centred upon a contemplative, daily ritual of deep connection with nature. Within her practice she explores the seemingly invisible inter-connectivity and reciprocity between humans and the natural world, working broadly on topics of social and climate equity and sustainability, exploring concepts of regeneration and continuum. Her practise involves the observation of life cycles in nature, using ice, natural materials and recycled paper which have minimal impact on the ecosystem.

Durant received her MA(2012) from the University of Pretoria, South Africa, while working as a sustainability consultant for the UK Government. She holds a BFA in visual arts from Emily Car University and attended Cooper Union School of Art & Science in NYC. Her MA thesis, focuses on the topic of Sustainable Urban Agriculture and Forestation.

Solo exhibitions include Points & Perforations, for which she received a Canada Council (CC) New Media Award, resulting in an architectural & sound installation that explored the social and economic dynamism of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. In 2011 she received a CC Grant and completed Invisible Rivers, exhibited at the GPAG. Group exhibitions include Looped, at Artemisia, Chicago and The Well, at the Surrey Art Gallery. The Well is held in the SAGAL permanent collection. Durant conceptualized and co-curated Out of the Rain: A Project for Homelessness in Vancouver and is a recent recipient of a CC Grant to research and create, Understory: A Hidden Connection.

Works are held in public and private collections locally and internationally. Durant was born, lives and creates with gratitude on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.