An aura of youth and vitality coupled with a slight precarity is immediately apparent upon entering push and pull<\/em>, Georgina Jackson\u2019s debut exhibition as director of exhibitions and publications at Mercer Union. This is perhaps due, in part, to the majority of the works having been made specifically for the show. And although the central premise of the exhibition has been contextualized as the interstitial, or the spaces of in-between or almost, the elements of storytelling and concern with time that similarly tie these three young artists together are perhaps more compelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each work sits between at least two practices\u200a\u2014\u200aMichael Vickers between sculpture and painting; Nikki Woolsey: collage and sculpture; and Bridget Moser: performance, stand-up comedy, and modern dance. However, beyond this oscillation of medium, each has managed to capture a world of narrative within their individual works. Vickers plays with poetry and personal narrative as in his work Vera in the Fields<\/em> (2014), a grassy green angular steel piece perched dangerously between the floor and wall, a reference to his grandmother who laboured in prairie fields upon immigrating from Switzerland, while Woolsey allows the objects themselves to tell her their stories as in Feel Need Need Feel<\/em> (2014) whereby the desperate request of an underwear band holds itself, and by extension the sculpture, together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In essence, Vickers positions himself against his materials via the very physical act of bending and manipulating them, while Woolsey acts as their translator, collecting, arranging and \u201cwillingly working with little expertise,\u201d as she recently explained. Both makers also possess an ability to suggest enduring moments beyond those they\u2019ve momentarily captured here. Indeed, each responds to time rather differently. While Woolsey views her arrangements as tenuous and on the verge of being constantly remade, the action of Vickers\u2019 labour, rendered in folds, drapes, or angles depending on the material, stand in testament to discrete and finite moments of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, there is Bridget Moser, who stole the show. The main space features I Want to Believe<\/em> (2014) a two-channel video that repeatedly plays against and in tandem with itself, referencing popular culture, the banalities of office work, and the existential \u201cbig questions\u201d of life all to a melancholic, if slightly cheeky, soundtrack of Damien Rice. The piece is aesthetically refined, boasting a palate of khaki, tan, and grey but is nevertheless approachable\u200a\u2014\u200athere is something instantly familiar and comforting about the objects Moser employs and the way she uses them. It\u2019s the most beautiful piece of improv theatre you\u2019ve ever seen. It is highly affective and completely engaging, strong enough to bring a viewer to pensive pause if it wasn\u2019t so funny, and it\u2019s the kind of piece that anyone who\u2019s been intimidated by performance art should see.<\/p>\n