A Tangled Thicket

Z·inc Artist Collective (Willa Downing, Lesley Garratt, Cora Li-Leger, and Claire Moore) are united by a profound passion for community, craft, natural materials, and ecological consciousness. A long-standing presence in Surrey art communities, the group has supported collaborative artmaking initiatives with an extended network of creatives and the public at large for over a decade.

A Tangled Thicket captures the ethos of connectivity that lies at the heart of Z·inc’s practice. Drawing on theories of ecology, neuroscience, and ontology (the study of being itself), each artist expounds on the interconnection between nature and the human mind and how they are embedded within and shaped by each other.

Across painting, drawing, sculpture, textile, and handmade installations, each artist alludes to the porousness of the supposed boundaries that separate humans from other species, as well as the stories we tell ourselves about “nature” and our relationship with it. Citing inspirations such as the neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal, ecologist Suzanne Simard, and local poet and author Aislinn Hunter, Z·inc’s works vividly capture the resonance across all forms of matter: from the biochemical schemata of plant cells and brain neurons to the mycorrhizal networks of fungi, trees, animals, people, places, families, and memories.

Z·inc constantly strives to push beyond the boundaries of their own practices, inviting responses in the form of interactive installations. The collaborative Objects for Pondering project encourages visitors to handle bespoke, handmade items—books, miniature figurines, ceramic sculptures, memorabilia—that prompt personal reflection and meaning-making. Made for the occasion of Surrey Art Gallery’s 50th anniversary, the Cultured:50 project includes 50 petri dishes filled with objects co-created by other artists south of the Fraser.

Elsewhere, the exhibition includes artworks that celebrate the inherent craftsmanship of each artist’s approach, emphasizing organic materials, bodily sensation, and improvisation. Interactive sculptures by Claire Moore and ink paintings by Lesley Garratt imagine vibrant worlds of anthropomorphic creatures that move between realms, untethered by human categories, while artist books by Cora Li-Leger and large-scale installations by Willa Downing draw attention to the synergy between consciousness and history.

In the face of ever greater automization and social stratification, Z·inc proposes a radical creative togetherness imagined through the lives of artworks and the people who make, use, and respond to them. 

About the Artists

Willa Downing (b. 1952, Taiwan) grew up in London, Ontario, and moved to Vancouver to study at the University of British Columbia where she obtained a PhD in Biochemistry. She has worked in scientific research in Canada and abroad. Passionate about making art, Downing also has a diploma in painting and drawing from the Emily Carr College (now University) of Art + Design (ECUAD). Her artwork has been exhibited in BC and Alberta. Downing has taught at ECUAD and has lectured in plant biotechnology at Simon Fraser University. She lives and works in Surrey where she is a founding member of Z×inc Artist Collective.

Lesley Garratt was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1951 where she studied art for two years at Ontario College of Art (now OCAD University) and later received a BA in Psychology and Art at York University, notably studying with Vera Frenkel, the Canadian multidisciplinary artist. While maintaining a studio practice and exhibition roster, she worked as an art educator in Toronto, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. Currently, Garratt lives and works in White Rock, British Columbia. A founding member of Z×inc Artist Collective and CAM (Contemporary Art Matters), the artist has worked over a decade within a collective voice to push the creative boundaries in the Greater Vancouver region.

After receiving a BFA from the University of Minnesota in 1975, Cora Li-Leger attended the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts under the tutelage of Joe Plaskett. There she met her husband Don and subsequently immigrated to Canada. She has lived in South Surrey since 1987. Through 2015, she had an active career as an expressive arts therapist. Having retired from that profession, drawing, bookmaking, and handiwork projects now comprise her practice. Much of her work engages in iterative processes, quietude, and meditative approaches. Li-Leger has participated in educational presentations, medical conference exhibitions, and artist book fairs, as well as exhibitions in BC, Alberta, Manitoba, Washington, and the UK. Several Pacific Northwest permanent collections include her work.

Claire Moore was raised in apartheid South Africa where she studied art at Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town. Moore’s early work centred on human stories—people and place, power and control, belonging, and resilience. In 2007, Moore joined the fledgling Fort Gallery Collective where she showed work as a member for ten years. She participated in the local Day of Drawing movement, which morphed into Z×inc Artist Collective, and initiated over a decade of showing work in alternative spaces. Moore had exhibited in multiple venues across Surrey and the Lower Mainland, in a solo capacity at Douglas College (2017), and has commissioned paintings in Ojai (California), London (UK), and Sidney (Australia). 

Curator: Rhys Edwards
Origin of Exhibition: Surrey Art Gallery

Join Z·inc for the spring opening "Enter the Connectome" art party on April 26, an artist talk on May 8, and a tour and poetry reading on June 7.