Contact Games

Megan Dickie

June 11 to July 10, 2010

Contact Games harnessed ideas of whimsy and the outlandish to provoke amusement: large interactive sculptures combined with absurd serigraph prints referenced artificial obsessions with the new. In this exhibition, novelty objects and scenarios exemplified quintessential forms that rejoice in excess, truthful about their moral shortcomings: sites of play created, however, from a place of science, physics and reason. This conflict between delight and logic formed the basis for the fantastic competitions in Contact Games.

Megan Dickie is an artist who works in the mediums of sculpture, video and printmaking. Her artistic research focuses on the seductive tension that exists between reason and play. Dickie explores this concept by subverting systems and structures with critically deployed humour. Her most recent project uses video games as a platform to question the competitive structure of contemporary art and our enduring fascination with watching human struggle. Dickie received her MFA from the University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, 2002) and a BFA from the University of Calgary (1997). Her works are part of the collections of the University of Saskatchewan, Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Nickel Arts Museum. She is Department Chair and Associate Professor in Visual Arts at the University of Victoria.