Cathy Busby and Garry Neill Kennedy at Wil Aballe, Vancouver

UH-HUH / SORRY, works by Cathy Busby and Garry Neill Kennedy, includes a selection of prints from Busby’s SORRY Series (2005-2014), her WE ARE SORRY Fragments (2013), and her ATRIUM prints (2010). Central to Kennedy’s work are eight large-scale working drawings (1992-2009) mapping his floor-to-ceiling wall paintings, including I DON’T WANT TO PAY THE FULL PRICE (Centre A, Vancouver, 2008). In addition, is one of his SEIZED prints from EXECUTIVE SUITE (suite of nine, 1991), along with 18 preparatory drawings.

Busby and Kennedy worked in parallel over the 20 years of their relationship. They compared notes, and occasionally exhibited their work side-by-side and yet their practices remained separate and distinct. Kennedy found his art chops through the late-1950s and 60s; while Busby’s art formation took place through the 1980s and 90s. They shared conceptual art roots and an overall concern with the political, both inside and outside art institutions. This is the first time Busby has put forward her work and, posthumously, Kennedy’s.

Cathy Busby has a longtime personal and political interest in pain and care. From her extensive work on public apologies, to her humorous yet poignant collection of self-help books, her energetic, multi-modal work addresses timely and critical issues. She attended the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (BFA 1984), where she directed the College’s Anna Leonowens Gallery. Busby holds an MA in Media Studies and a PhD in Communication from Concordia University (1999). She was a Fulbright Scholar at New York University, and a Contemporary Art Researcher at the National Gallery of Canada (1997-98). She has exhibited extensively in Canada and internationally in New York, Beijing, Berlin and Melbourne. She lives in Vancouver.

Garry Neill Kennedy (1935–2021) was a dis-tinguished Canadian conceptual artist, educator and long-time Nova Scotian, who lived his later years in Vancouver. In addition to his active career as an artist, Kennedy taught at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD University) for more than forty years, while serving as the institution’s president from 1967 to 1990. He exhibited widely, including a retrospective Work of Four Decades (2000-2001) at the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. He was the recipient of the Order of Canada and the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts. An upcoming travelling retrospective of his six decades of work is scheduled to open at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in 2027.

GARRY NEILL KENNEDY

WORKING DRAWINGS

Kennedy’s working drawings were used to create his monumental wall-text paintings, enabling him to precisely integrate them with the architecture of the site.

Among the eight working drawings on view are I DON’T WANT TO PAY THE FULL PRICE (Centre A, Vancouver, 2009); UH-HUH (S.L. Simpson Gallery, Toronto, 1992); FAILURE OF INTELLIGENCE (McMaster University Art Gallery, Hamilton, 2005), and SHIT HAPPENS (CANADA, New York City, 2006). Each are poignant phrases, the first excerpted from the Lonely Planet phrase book, and presented in both English and Mandarin; the latter two clipped from news reporting on the American invasion of Iraq (2003). The colour palettes of these floor-to-ceiling wall paintings were often sourced from the names of house-paints. The font emerges from variations on Kennedy’s signature Superstar Shadow.

While installing, Kennedy would keep these scale drawings close by, often tacking them up for easy reference while he and his crew measured, taped and painted. Now, as artifacts, they provide a window into the reasoning and artistic logic underlying these iconic works.