E.M. Brossard Artist E . M . Brossard is a kind of documentarian. She does not shy away from difficult subject matter and uses the materials at hand to paint whatever obsesses her at the moment. "I read all the papers," she says. "I have a huge library. M y father told me once, 'Don't worry if you can't remember everything, just look it up'." Broken Values, Brossard's recent show at CityScape ( (immunity Art Space, commented on the spiritual, social and political climate in the world today and challenged other artists to interpret their view of the current global situation and its future. It began with stories she read about children in orphanages in Romania and Bosnia. "I started doing painting and collages, went from one catastrophe to the next. People looked at my work and wondered why I would create art that wouldn't sell. Well, I don't care." Brossard studied at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; holds a Museum Assistant Certificate from Vancouver City College, studied sculpture under Beatrice Lennie for two years and printmaking at Malaspina College. She has taken courses in art and writing at Simon Fraser University and Capilano College, and studied art history, anthropology, archeology, photography, welding, potter\, ceramics, knitting, crocheting, rug hooking and weaving, dying and spinning wool. She has also won several awards for writing and painting and was a finalist in the 1998 Canada-wide Competition for Excellence in the Arts. She uses whatever materials strike her fancy, from acrylic, watercolour and ink to animal heads, chicken wire and Left: E.M. Brossard in front of Broken Values installation at CityScape Gallery; Right: Broken Values by E.M. Brossard found objects. In a piece called Buried Secrets she incorporated the gold covers of pounds of butter that she had collected to create a woman as a tree. "I burnt off the paper on the back and ended up with a beautiful greenish-gold." Women occupy a lot of her work. "I'm interested in women, their lives and achievements. I painted a portrait of a woman on the N o r t h Shore who has spent her whole life teaching art and helping people, teaching for nothing at the senior's centre. I felt that she was someone who should be honoured." For a couple of years Brossard has been working on paintings about peace including a portrait of Mother Theresa. "I paint the life that goes around in my head." New Director/Curator at Presentation House Gallery In A p r i l , Reid Shier takes over the reigns from Bill Jeffries as the Director/Curator at Presentation House Gallery. Shier comes to P H G from Tsoronto, where he was Chief Curator of the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery. In Toronto, Shier produced a number of exhibitions, including projects with Geoffrey Farmer, Joëlle Tuerlinckx, S U P E R F L E X , Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset and On Kawara. He is also curating an upcoming exhibition with recent Turner Prize winner Simon Starling that will premiere at the Power Plant in September, 2006. Shier is no stranger to the lower mainland art scene, from 2002 to 2004 he was Curator of the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver, and from 1996 to 2002, Director/Curator of the artist run Or Gallery. He is a practicing artist, critical writer and has curated over 80 exhibitions, including solo exhibitions with Stan Douglas, NestorKruger, Brian Jungen,Myfanwy MacLeod, Dan Graham, Martin Boyce and Euan Macdonald among many others. www.arts-alive.ca May I June