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Image by Angeline Simon.
Surface all the way through
Arianna Richardson
October 24 – December 13, 2025
Opening Reception:
October 24th 2025
7pm - 9pm
The New Gallery
208 Centre St S
Co-Presented with STEPS Public Art
Surface all the way through is a collection of sculptures made from discarded materials that look like pillows. Abandoned craft supplies collected from the thrift store have been copiously layered to form decorative surfaces that conceal interiors of plastic packaging trash. While making this work with my sewing machine and vintage knitting machine, I was ruminating on waste, superficiality, sentimental materialism, distraction, accumulation, and containment.
Pillows, at first an obsession, became a metaphor for all the ways I have tried to compartmentalize and process difficult events or emotions in my life. They are absurdist facsimiles of familiar domestic objects meant to provide ornamental distraction and comfort, a place to carry and hold all that I don’t want to, a fantasy vision of a place to land.
This exhibition is composed entirely of plastic in its many forms: a material that I am endlessly attracted to for its shape-shifting mimicry and limitless supply of exciting surface qualities. As a toxic, uncontainable, and grossly over-produced material, it is also repulsive and surrounds me with dread and despair. As a foil to these crushing emotions, there is whimsy, humour, and a sincere appreciation of kitschy camp aesthetics in these handcrafted soft-sculptures.
Image by Angeline Simon.
Arianna Richardson is a sculptor, performance artist, sewist, and mother from Lethbridge, AB in Treaty 7 territory. She is a lifelong crafter and thrift-store enthusiast, constantly collecting plastic-based trash and discarded craft materials. Richardson sometimes performs under the pseudonym, The Hobbyist, taking her hobby-craft pursuits outdoors to activate public spaces and talk to people about trash. While she isn’t making art, Arianna works as Lead Prepator at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery and as a sessional instructor teaching Spatial Practice at the University of Lethbridge.
Richardson holds a BFA (2013) in Studio Arts from the University of Lethbridge and an MFA (2018) from NSCAD in Halifax, NS. Her first artist book, Garbage Party: A Collection of Thoughts About Trash, was self-released in March 2021.