Although Vancouver-based artists Kelly Gough and Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo have contrasting histories and artistic practices, they share common ground. Gallery Gachet’s current exhibition, Coalescence: A Body of Memories, brings together the unique, yet connected, narratives of these two artists as they explore issues surrounding war, violence and the effects of trauma.

Kristin Lantz, Gallery Gachet’s programming coordinator, explains that the exhibition shares with the viewer the process in which Castillo and Gough are each working through their personal traumas.

Lantz notes that both artists give great attention to their creative practice and that their work is visually striking and incredibly detailed.

“You hope to catch a glimpse of work like this,” says Lantz. “Amazingly, they are inviting us into their process.”

Revisiting the past

In Castillo’s multimedia drawings, representations of the human body predominate, serving as the site and symbol of physical injury and distress. Using imagery derived from Pre-Columbian mythology, Salvadoran popular folklore and North American popular culture, Castillo explores the many ways in which the body is affected by violence.

In Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo’s Civil war autopsy, the human body is the site of trauma | Photo courtesy of Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo

Castillo and his family lived in El Salvador during the 12-year civil war and as a result of this, migrated to Canada in 1989. In exploring this past, Castillo brings forth a post-war narrative where experiences of loss and pain are part of both a personal and collective memory.

While his work focuses on trauma and violence, he also considers how his expression of these subjects relates to the healing process. He asks himself what happens after war, but he also asks, what does reconciliation look like?

“I like to think there’s hope in the work that I do,” he says. “The artistic process can be a tool for healing and reconciliation.”

Castillo does not define what he does as therapy, but acknowledges that art allows him to confront issues that are deeply significant for him, issues surrounding war and migration.

“There is value in my memories of pain, the memories I’m linked to,” says Castillo. “It is important that I keep revisiting that history.” Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo, artist

Seeing beyond the ordinary

Effort by Kelly Gough is made of approximately 3400 brass hinges and weighs close to 50 pounds | Photo courtesy of Kelly Gough

Gough, whose artistic practice is largely in sculpture and installation, expresses her ongoing journey through trauma, and her perspectives on mental illness, through the selected materials with which she creates.

“I like to find materials that are everyday, that people don’t pay attention to,” says Gough, who is inspired by the ways in which artists in the 60s and 70s created with alternative materials.

Gough connects her use of industrial and common materials, like copper wire and pond liner, to a larger idea of seeing the potential, power and beauty of things that we see as ordinary or mundane.

After 22 years as a social worker with the Canadian Armed Forces, Gough was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. She left the military, moved to Vancouver Island and began making art as an essential part of her recovery process.

By presenting everyday materials in unexpected ways, Gough hopes that her work might alter the viewer’s perspective and, ultimately, encourage people to look at their lives, the world and the people around them through a different lens.

“People see my work and are surprised to see what it’s made of,” she says. “There is hope there – in seeing things differently.”

Coalescence: A Body of Memories runs until Dec. 21.
On Nov. 26, 7–9 p.m., Gallery Gachet will host a panel discussion, titled Exploring Trauma and the Artistic Process.
Please visit www.gachet.org for more information on the exhibition and artists.