Renée Van Halm

The subject of *Dream Home* is real estate, particularly how the idea of domesticity and “home” is constructed in the public imagination. On a given date last year, Renée Van Halm selected the largest and smallest properties for sale on Vancouver's West Side. She utilized their floor plans, procured from Vancouver's Multiple Listing Service, as the basis for imagining how two properties at the extreme ends of affordability might be configured. The result is two sculptural  installations in which over forty rooms of the Big House and two small rooms of The Apartment have been modeled in scale and displayed in an architecturally “exploded” format on the gallery's floor. On the left hand side of the B.C. Binning Gallery sits the upper and lower floor of the larger dwelling, to the right sits a small apartment. In the artist's words, "The range of property size reflects how we define suitable habitation. The two sites represent opposing attitudes to the project of home — the larger revivalist structure is steeped in nostalgia, isolated and bunker-like; the smaller a bottom-line, efficient machine where the living space fits like an article of clothing." Emphasizing how individuated these ideas can be, Van Halm has painted each room of the two sculptures using one of the thousands of varieties of white that can be found in any paint store, and which are usually employed in private, interior spaces.

Accompanying *Dream Home* is *Listings* — gouache paintings depicting a variety of houses whose images Van Halm also took from the real estate listing service. They are intimate depictions of ostentatious houses, and point to one of Van Halm's recurring themes: how the private home is implicated in systems of public display. Large homes are often meant to advertise bourgeois attributes of wealth, respectability and leisure, but also to indicate retreat, privacy and a removal from the social ills of the contemporary urban world. Van Halm's gouaches exhibit how these often contradictory desires are elaborated in a variety of architectural realizations.


A watercolour painting of a large house surrounded by trees and other foliage, which are painted with loose brushstrokes. The painting is made with muted tones of green, brown, grey, and black. 

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Many sculptures are installed on a gallery floor.  They are square shaped and low in height. Those cube-shaped sculptures are pale coloured; some of them are pale pink, yellow, blue, or green.  

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This is an aerial view of the sculptural installation in a gallery space. Pale coloured square sculptures are placed on the floor. They are divided into three groups. 

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In a gallery space, many pale-coloured cube sculptures are placed on the floor. They are placed to mimic a city landscape. Eight photographs are mounted on the wall near the entrance.

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This is a low-angle shot of the installation in a gallery space. Many pale-coloured cube sculptures are placed on the floor. A shape of a house front is carved on one of the  sculptures’ facade.  

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Dream Home

Exhibitions exploring the City of Vancouver Art Collection, managed by the Contemporary Art Gallery since 1971, have been the feature of our summer program during the past two years. This year the Gallery is taking a different approach to the idea of art collecting by focusing on art that has been collected by artists. Artists often acquire work through a variety of means such as trades, purchases from colleagues and through supporting the art auctions that are an essential means of raising funds for many non-profit galleries. The artists invited to share their collections in *Private Eyes* represent a diversity of sensibilities in their own work and in what they have collected. Selected works from five Vancouver artists' collections will be featured: Christos/ Sophie Dikeakos, Gisele Amantea/Peter White, Ken Lum/Denise Oleksijczuk, Hank Bull/Kate Craig, and Renee Van Halm.

In this exhibition the artists will also be assuming the role of curator. Each artist has been asked to select works from their own collection and to determine how they will be installed within their allotted space in the Gallery. Each collection will be arranged as a personalized grouping rather than the usual presentation of individual works standing on their own. Artists as collectors are often overlooked in considering how art collections are traditionally developed; *Private Eyes* brings a new perspective to this important aspect of the art-world.

Eleven artworks mounted on a white wall. The works include a small all-red painting, a double exposure photo portrait, and a text work that reads "au secouirs!". Some works are framed, some are not.

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Eight framed art works on a white wall. The works vary in size and are photographs, illustrations, or mixed media. The frames of the works are black, white or plain wood. 

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A corner of a gallery space with several artworks mounted across both walls. The works vary in size, framed and unframed. On the right, there is a large photo of a tree with a blue sky, upside down.

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31 landscape paintings of many sizes in various frames mounted on a white wall in a gallery space. Below, in front of the wall, there is a faded red velvet couch with a feather-shaped paisley pattern.

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Two walls and a darkened hallway in a gallery space. The walls contain several artworks of different sizes. Two works of different sizes are upside-down photos of trees in front of blue skies. 

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14 artworks on a gallery wall. The bottom edges of the works are mounted at the same level , but their height and width varies. The largest work, on the right, is a Salish landscape illustration.

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Three white walls and a shadowy hallway in a gallery. Dozens of artworks are mounted on the walls. The works on the back wall are landscapes, with a faded red velvet couch in front of them.

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11 works mounted on a white wall. The works are placed asymmetrically, many of them in wood frames. One work reads "Big Tree." Beside it, there is a large photo of an upside-down tree and a blue sky.

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13  artworks are mounted on a white wall in a gallery, all but one are framed. At the base of the wall on the floor, there is a tile mosaic that reads "Sex Hell" in red letters on a blue background. 

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Collections from Chris and Sophie Dikeakos, Gisele Amantea and Peter White, Ken Lum and Denise Oleksijczuk, Hank Bull and Kate Craig, and Renée Van Halm, artworks from approximately 40 artists

Private Eyes, What Artists Collect

This publication was co-produced in 2002 by the Contemporary Art Gallery; The Southern Alberta Art Gallery; and Kamloops Art Gallery to accompany the touring exhibition *Dream Home* by Renée Van Halm. It includes the essay "How To Colour" by The Office for Soft Architecture and an essay by Sherry McKay.

Renée Van Halm

Exhibitions

Publications & Editions