Mickey Bourque

blanks

Monday, March 23 - Friday, March 27, 2026

Gordon Snelgrove Gallery

Reception: Friday, March 27, from 6 - 9pm

Do you recall your earliest memory? If so, how young were you?

I struggle to describe my earliest memories. As the youngest of six children, my siblings often asked me, “remember when you used to do ______ as a kid?” My response was ambiguous, however, and I often answered, “kind of.” I never understood how others had such vivid memories of their childhood, while mine remained hazy, so I stayed quiet about my lack of them.

Recently, after a conversation about this topic, I reflected deeply and realized that I could not remember events before my tenth birthday. While I had assumed these gaps were normal, I also noticed how often my mind produced images that I could not attest to; even though these could be true memories, they could also be borrowed from photographs, formulated through another person’s recollection, or simply imagined.

Curiosity around this topic became the starting point to blanks, a body of work in which I explore the fragility of memory and the nature of childhood recollections. Each piece is based on a photograph of an event, object, or person that I do not remember. Like the phenomenon of memory, some information is rendered, while other details are unfinished; echoing how the memory of moments still can exist in the peripheral of the mind. To create the artworks, I gathered and referenced family photographs and stories, from which I chose the most important details. By revisiting and reflecting on my past through the process of creating new artworks, I attempt to reclaim it.

About the Artist

Mickey is a twenty-two-year-old artist from small-town Saskatchewan and an honours B.F.A. student at the University of Saskatchewan. Passionate about transforming craft within her art practice, she primarily focuses on painting while continually exploring mixed media. Her work often draws on personal experiences from adolescence. Mickey looks forward to pursuing her creative future as an active artist.

Tess Johnson

Monday, March 23 - Friday, March 27, 2026

Gordon Snelgrove Gallery

Reception: Friday, March 27, from 6 - 9pm

There will likely not be enough time to leave by Wednesday explores the world and human existence from close-up and afar. Created through the lens of skeptical futurism, the work imposes itself into the viewer’s space, both visually and physically, to collapse the distance between humans and an accelerating future that is past saving.

The works featured in this show reflect my interest toward the Earth’s finality, and how humanity’s inability to exist without it is a unique experience for mankind.

About the Artist

Hailey Pankratz

Between Worlds

Monday, March 23 - Friday, March 27, 2026

Gordon Snelgrove Gallery 

Reception: Friday, March 27, from 6 - 9pm

Between Worlds explores what it means to exist between the structured rhythms of modern life and the instinctual intelligence of the natural world. In a culture governed by clocks, routines, and productivity, identity often becomes externalized and fixed. Yet beneath these systems, our bodies remain cyclical, intuitive, and deeply connected to nature. This tension forms the conceptual core of the exhibition.

My awareness of this tension comes partly from how my relationship with art began. Growing up, I spent countless hours making arts and crafts with my grandma, where creating was driven by curiosity and enjoyment. For me, art is rooted in play — a way of connecting, exploring, and expressing inner thoughts and emotions.

In contemporary culture, however, play is often overshadowed by productivity. Even the art world reflects this mindset. Academic traditions frequently divide creative expression into hierarchies, separating “fine art” from craft or hobby and quietly determining what is considered meaningful or valuable. These labels can distance us from the playful, intuitive origins of making and restrict the freedom true creativity requires.

By reimagining the body as fluid and interconnected, Between Worlds asks how we reconcile our existence as natural beings within artificial systems.

The works create an environment that allows for a deep reflection on the experience of living within structures that often ask us to act against our instincts, and how we might reclaim an authentic voice by remembering our connection to the same life force that moves through all living things.

About the Artist 

Hailey Pankratz is an emerging artist from Treaty 6 with an active interdisciplinary practice, spanning across many different mediums including drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, video art, and sculpture. Her work stems from asking herself big questions about the universe and our place in it, as well as reflecting deeply on the intersections of society, nature, and the self. She often explores a realm that lies somewhere between dreams and reality: a sort of liminal space where ideas are born and personal iconography comes to life through symbolism and gesture. Her artistic choices are guided by intuition and impulse, with each work becoming a conversation between artist and subject. Colour, movement, and energy all work together to create a unique visual language that is a continuous thread throughout her work and serves as a connection point between her various mediums and methods of artmaking.